The Power of Give and Take
by WirelessW
Summary: Midoriya Izuku's power allows him to take the quirks of others and use them for his own, or transfer them between people. Some of the kids at his old school might have called it creepy (not Bakugo, of course - he's not scared of anything, least of all his oldest friend) but Midoriya knows that he can use this power to become a hero.
1. From Little Acorns

Midoriya was halfway home from middle school when he realised he had some of Bakugo's sheets folded up in his pocket. The two friends had been comparing notes after school, and he had taken the bunch when he was leaving. He fished his phone out of his other pocket, and dialled Bakugo's number. It rang for a moment, and just as Bakugo picked up Midoriya heard a loud clang come from behind him. He turned, and found himself face-to-face with a giant blob of green slime. "Uh, you know what, I'll call you back" he said in a small voice.

He dropped his phone as the slime rushed towards him. A mouth manifested on its body, and declared "I'm gonna make you my new skinsuit, kid!"

"I wouldn't count on it!", he shot back as he thrust out his hands and activated his quirk. Well, one of them. The slime person was stopped in his tracks by a wall of wind. The blob powered forward and tried to close the gap, and Midoriya turned up the pressure. He was beginning to wonder whether he could keep it up for long enough for his attacker to give up when he heard something else coming from the manhole.

xxx

All Might leapt from the open manhole cover and cast his eyes about for the crook he'd been chasing. Sure enough, the green blob was menacing a young boy further down the street. The kid was holding him at bay with some kind of forcefield – no, that was definitely air pressure – until All Might came in for the finishing blow.

"Well done, young man!", he boomed as he scooped up the villain. "You kept a cool head and made excellent use of your quirk. What is that, some kind of wind manipulation?" Of course, strictly speaking he should have given the kid a warning about public quirk use, but for the sake of resolving the incident cleanly and without hurting anyone he was willing to let it slide.

"It's a little more complicated than that, uh..." All Might chuckled internally as the kid belatedly realised who he was talking to. "All Might! Holy cow! This is the greatest day of my life!" He bowed low and offered a notebook. It looked like school stationery, and the kid's uniform suggested Middle School.

All Might beamed as he took the book and dug out a pen. "Think nothing of it, my boy. Say, who am I making this out to?"

"Midoriya, sir! Midoriya Izuku!"

"Excellent! And would you by any chance be considering your career options?" It was a gamble, but a likely one – young Midoriya had hero-wannabe written all over him.

"Yes, sir! I'm applying for UA, to be a hero just like you! Uh, now I think of it, do you have any advice?"

He scrawled out standard autograph #7 (kid in peril but not hurt) and handed the notebook back to his fan. Now things had calmed down a little, the kid honestly looked like kind of a wimp. "You clearly have a good handle on your quirk, and of course that's important. But it's not everything! Look into a gym membership – you could do with a little extra bulk."

"Right!" said Midoriya. He almost raised one hand as if to salute, but seemed to think better of it and eventually ended up scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

All Might coughed into one hand. "Uh, anyway, I should go get this guy down to the police station. Will you be OK making your own way home?"

"Yes, sir!" replied Midoriya. If nothing else, All Might supposed the kid at least had guts. If he really wanted to be a hero, that would be a major help.

It was only after he had handed the slime villain into the local police that he realised the line about guts would have made a good bit of advice to give the kid. He shrugged. Midoriya seemed like a decent kid, he'd probably get it all figured out.

xxx

Midoriya had been overjoyed when the doctor had explained his quirk, even if he didn't get very many opportunities to practice with it. The young boy had considered naming it Borrow, but in the end decided on Give And Take: The power to take other powers, and use them as his own. Early experimentation had revealed that he could only use the power at about half its original strength, and that he could also transfer the quirks he took to other people – for example, his mother and the doctor both enjoyed playing around with each others' quirks. Those he gave the quirks to were also restricted to weakened versions of the original quirk, but whenever he gave the quirk back to its original holder they were once again able to use it at full capacity.

Throughout his youth, the other kids at school had almost always had the same reaction when they learned about his quirk. At first they thought it was cool; and then whenever it was used on them, or on one of their friends, they quickly changed their tune. His quirk went from being cool to weird, creepy or even – whisper it – villainous.

There had only ever been one exception to this trend: Bakugo Katsuki. Bakugo had immediately focused on the fact that Midoriya could only use the quirks of others at half-strength, and whenever other kids were scared of Midoriya he had merely called them cowards for fearing someone half as strong as them. With their positions as two of the best in the class and their strong quirks, Bakugo and Midoriya had maintained a strong friendship for as long as either boy could remember – albeit a friendship sometimes expressed in unusual terms. Bakugo's fierce nature and Midoriya's relentless optimism combined to form two boys who were sure that they would achieve great things.

Midoriya had always believed (and almost certainly would always believe) that any quirk could be used to help people. For that reason, he had joined several sites and forums for people whose lives were made more difficult by inconvenient or hard-to-control quirks. When he heard about a case near him, and when he was able to convince the individual in question that he was legitimately able to help, Midoriya liked to take quirks from these people and provide them with another, reduced-strength quirk. Through doing this, he found another little oddity of his own quirk – when he used it to take a mutation-type quirk, he or whoever he gave it to would not be physically changed. Rather, it would become an emitter-type. The former mutant would find themselves with a perfectly ordinary body. Thus, Midoriya gained the power to manipulate air pressure from a man who had been a sapient wind-storm. In return, Midoriya gave him the ability to freeze objects with a touch, which he had obtained from a woman who used to be made of snow.

The man went on to become a successful small business owner and the woman started an environmental charity, but that's neither here nor there.

xxx

It was such a lovely day that it seemed a shame to spend it cooped up indoors. Midoriya considered taking a trip to the beach, but the only one nearby was choked with trash. _'Someone ought to do something about that'_, he thought as he rode the bus to a nearby park. He brought up the city government's website on his phone and left a comment about cleaning up public areas, thought if he were honest he doubted it would do much good.

He'd taken All Might's advice and joined a gym; and he'd started judo lessons besides. He'd also been taking steps to make his diet healthier, though he was struggling to know which foods really were better for him and which were only supposed to be. When he'd mentioned this to his mother, she had sighed good-naturedly and told him "Son, welcome to my life".

The months leading up to the exam passed without any real excitement. Midoriya and Bakugo each worked towards their goal as best they could, in their own ways. The rest of their middle school class seemed to consider it a fait accompli that the two of them would be attending UA, but the boys themselves were unwilling to leave it to chance. Externally, each projected confidence. Internally, each was preparing himself for any possible challenge.

The night before the exam Midoriya was so tense that he struggled to get to sleep. Thus, he was surprised to wake the next morning feeling great. He made his way to UA with plenty of time to spare and took in the scene at the academy gates. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and Midoriya had the feeling that nothing could possibly stand in his way; right up until a stray burst of wind snatched his examinee welcome letter from his hands and sent it on a leisurely jaunt above the path. "Catch that letter!", he cried as he ran after it.

Several other students turned to look, and a few made grabs for it, until eventually a girl with pink cheeks and brown hair jumped up, higher than he would have assumed she could, and snatched it out of the air.

"Here ya go!" she said cheerfully, holding it out to him. Midoriya noticed that she was keeping her pinkie off the sheet, and wondered if that was anything to do with her quirk. Maybe she was being careful not to disintegrate it or something, which was nice of her. Midoriya made a vaguely grateful noise as he took the letter, and the girl went on her merry way.

His good mood persisted though Present Mic's explanation of the practical exam, though he was slightly disheartened to learn that he and Bakugo would be in different testing grounds. He struggled not to giggle as another examinee accosted Present Mic for what seemed to be a misprint on their forms. He supposed he could at least appreciate how earnestly the guy was acting.

Before long, he found himself part of the crowd gathered outside one of the testing grounds. He was surrounded by other students, all of them filled with a mix of hope and terror. It was then that he spotted a familiar figure. _'__Say, isn't that the nice girl from earlier? I never did get to thank her.' _He made his way over to say hello, only to be stopped short by a massive hand clamping down on his shoulder.

It was the earnest boy from the explanation. "If you're just here to bother the other candidates," he said sternly, "I suggest you leave."

The tension within Midoriya snapped, and then so did he. "Where do you get off making that kind of an accusation, huh? I'm here to do my best, just the same as everyone else! Frankly, you're the one bothering me!"

The other boy reared back as if struck, and then brought his hand down in a stiff chopping motion. "I beg your pardon! All I am doing is calling out a disruptive influence when I see one!"

"Oh you are just so full of-"

[MEANWHILE]

All Might cast his eyes over the crowds of hopefuls gathered outside the various testing areas. One particular examinee caught his attention. "Say, I know that boy! I'd recognise that green mop-top anywhere."

Aizawa rolled his eyes. "What'd you do, get him out of a tree?"

All Might chuckled. "Rescued him from a villain, actually. Well, rescue might be overstating it. He was holding the crook off with his quirk, at least temporarily." He gave the assembled teachers a brief report on his encounter with young Midoriya.

"That's pretty impressive, at his age", said Aizawa in a much more sincere tone of voice.

"Lemme look up his quirk a minute", said one of Ectoplasm's clones. Three more of them were taking notes on the crowds gathered outside different testing grounds. "Ah, here it is. His quirk is called Give and Take. It allows him to – good grief. It allows him to take the quirks of others and use them as his own, albeit at reduced strength. Furthermore, he can give the quirks he takes to others, or back to the original owner."

"Shit!" bit out Toshinori. "Is the effect permanent?"

"It, uh, appears that it is. Apparently he's had one of his quirks for almost six years now, and he reports no change in its effectiveness."

"How many does he have?" asked Midnight

"Two, at the moment. Telepathy and the ability to manipulate air pressure."

Toshinori shuddered. "He told me his quirk was complicated. I never even dreamed it might be something so sinister!" He realised that he would have to handle young Midoriya with extreme care, lest the boy grow into a new All For One. The other teachers had warned him that he might encounter students that could make potential villains, but he would never have expected the potential danger to be so severe.

"Sinister?", asked Midnight, "What do you mean?"

"W-well, uh, I'm sure you've all read the horror stories about the first days of quirks. The mythical crime lord who was supposed to take people's quirks for his own, and distribute them to his minions."

"The great All Might, a conspiracy theorist", mused Aizawa, "Well now I've seen it all."

All Might's face fell further. "Aaand, now he's bickering with the Iida boy. That's a shame, he seemed a nice young man when we first met."

"Exam jitters affect us all", commented Thirteen sagely. "Though I must say, those two are really going at it."

xxx

The practical exam had been going well for Midoriya, provided one ignored the argument he'd gotten into with that tall, overly-serious jackass. In fact, it had been going swimmingly. He was scoring somewhere in the high 30s or low 40s, making use of Pressure Drop to dart around the arena and smash robots' heads in. His fellow examinees were a colourful bunch, as well – he'd ended up hanging with a flamboyant Frenchman for a while, as he took out the nearby robots and his companion blasted the distant ones with some kind of laser. They'd gone their separate ways with a cheery nod and Midoriya was halfway through a mob of two-pointers when the zero-point stage hazard made its presence known to them.

That, and the crowd of students fleeing from it in terror, would have been distracting enough if he hadn't seen some poor girl trapped under rubble directly in the giant robot's path. The second he realised the trouble the girl was in, he was sprinting towards her. He skidded to a halt and hooked his fingers under the slab of rubble, letting jets of air lift it off her. As she shimmied out from under it she turned and gave the slab a good hard slap, and it grew noticeably lighter.

"Thanks", said Midoriya as he sent the offending item hurtling towards the robot's face. It crashed against the robot, making it flinch back and showering the two of them in dust.

"Yeah!" cheered the girl, "Take that, you big jerk!" Midoriya was feeling pretty good about the situation until she shoved him to the ground. At first he thought she was getting back in business, but then she jumped up and smacked another piece of falling debris. The chunk of concrete hung in midair until she touched her hands together and let it down. Midoriya's eyes widened as he looked at the size of it and imagined what might have happened had it hit him. As he got up and faced her once more, he realised she was the nice girl from earlier. She held up a hand, and as he high-fived her the end of the exam was announced.

He let out a sigh of relief. "I'm, uh, Midoriya. I never got to thank you earlier."

"After that? No need! I'm Uraraka." If Midoriya thought that was the most beautiful name he had ever heard, well, that was his business. "I hope we both get in, Midoriya. We make a great team!"

"Y-yeah, I'd like that." The pair joined the stream of hopefuls making their way back to the starting line. The French boy was there, looking somewhat the worse for wear; and he was next to the jackass with the glasses. Midoriya briefly considered making a snide comment, but he found he just didn't have it in him after that test – and besides, maybe he had just been reacting badly to pre-exam nerves. The jackass nodded to him, deeply enough that it could almost have been a bow. Recognising a peace sign when he saw one, Midoriya nodded back and smiled encouragingly.

He waved goodbye to Uraraka as they headed off to their respective changing rooms, and fell in next to a guy with skin made of rock. "What were you doing out there?", asked rock boy, "It looked like you were punching, but you never actually hit them."

"Air pressure", he replied as they reached the changing room, "I can do it without moving, but aiming makes it a lot easier."

That garnered him an enthusiastic thumbs up. "Cool! Hey, there was another guy I ran into earlier who could make air solid."

Midoriya dearly wished he had a notebook handy "Aw, no way!" he complained as he pulled his tracksuit top over his head, "Wish I'd met him, I love comparing quirks and stuff."

The other guy shrugged and started yanking his boots off. "Well, maybe we'll all end up in the same class and you can ask him then."

"Yeah, here's hoping." He stuck out a hand. "Good luck."

The other boy shook it with a firm grip and smiled, revealing some unnervingly sharp teeth. "You too, man"

Midoriya beamed back at him and felt nothing but confident optimism. He knew that he had just taken his first steps on the long road to becoming a hero.


	2. Welcome to UA!

_To my chagrin, I realise that I did not post a disclaimer or any kind of introduction with chapter 1. It might be too late for that intro, but here's a disclaimer. Please operate on the assumption that it applies to this entire work:_

_I do not own, nor do I claim to own, My Hero Academia nor any of its associated copyrights. My Hero Academia is the work of Horikoshi Kohei, his assistants, the rest of the relevant Shonen Jump staff and everyone listed in the credits of any given episode._

_On a more personal note: Good grief. The response to this story so far has been astounding. The idea that so many people enjoy this enough to subscribe for updates is humbling, and I thank all of you._

Soon enough, Midoriya received his eagerly-awaited results. He was thrilled to find that the message was from All Might himself, and even more when he learned that with his combination of Villain Points and the heretofore unknown Rescue Points he had placed third-highest overall. When he spoke with Bakugo and learned that they would be in the same class, that was really just the icing on the cake.

It seemed to take a hundred years for the first day of school to arrive. Whenever he complained, his mother smiled at him indulgently and asked what it was like to be the only boy in the country eager for the Summer break to be over. He took her point, but that didn't make the waiting any easier for him – and though Bakugo never said anything about it, he could only imagine that his friend was feeling even more impatient.

Finally, the day had come. After leaving bright and early (though not so early that his overjoyed mother hadn't been able to take some commemorative photos) Midoriya stood before the enormous door to classroom 1-A and steeled himself. "Man, I hope that big guy isn't in my class. That'll probably just be awkward." He opened the door, and found that most of the class was already present. Naturally this included Bakugo, and naturally Bakugo had his feet up on his desk and was being loudly and thoroughly chastised.

"Sit up properly this instant! Do you have any idea how disrespectful you're being right now?"

"Go arrange flowers, you overgrown plantpot!"

The girl who had been haranguing him – who had vines for hair, Midoriya couldn't wait to take notes – was temporarily lost for words. Meanwhile, a bright pink girl, a pitch-black boy and a boy with six arms watched the free entertainment. Midoriya took the chance to fire off an overly cheery "Good morning, Bakugo!"

"Die in a fire, Midoriya" replied his best friend.

Midoriya beamed and approached the plant girl. He bowed low, and in a sincere voice said "Don't worry about Bakugo. He's always like this."

"Eat my entire ass!"

"Anyway, I'm Midoriya! Pleased to meet you!"

The girl bowed shallowly. "Shiozaki, likewise. You certainly seem better-mannered than your friend here."

Just as Midoriya was gearing up for a half-hearted defence of Bakugo, he heard a familiar voice cry "Hey, it's you!"

He turned and found just the girl he had been hoping to see. "Uraraka!"

It was she. "Midoriya!" she called as she jogged towards them.

"How's it going?"

She gave him a thumbs-up and a bright smile "It's goin' great!"

Bakugo perked up slightly. "Oh hey, you must be the girl who helped Midoriya throw a rock at the zero-point robot"

"You threw a _rock_ at it?" asked a skinny girl towards the back of the class in a dry voice.

"It was a big rock!" replied Uraraka defensively.

"Settle down, all of you" said a man who definitely hadn't been there a moment ago. He looked like death warmed over, and Midoriya was pretty sure that was a sleeping bag he had slung over one shoulder. "I'm Mr Aizawa, and I'm going to be your homeroom teacher for the next year. Simply put, I will be your main point of contact with UA as a whole. If you have any questions that for whatever reason you can't ask your other teachers, bring them to me. If there's anything you need the school to do to make your life easier, you bring it to me. If any of you have any allergies, dietary requirements or anything like that, you need to let me know as soon as possible. It doesn't have to be right now if it's something you consider personal, but the sooner the better."

Bakugo nodded to Shiozaki. "Hey, you should tell him about the fish thing."

"I'm sorry?", she asked.

He gestured to the silver cross on her necklace. "That's a rule, isn't it? Sometimes you have to eat fish?"

"You're thinking of Catholics", she replied with a long-suffering look. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and she sighed "It's complicated, I'll tell you later."

Bakugo shrugged. "I don't really care that much, to be honest."

"Would it help if I told you there were decades of gruesome war involved?" she asked.

He sat up a little straighter. "A little, yeah."

Aizawa pointed at them. "You two, quiet in class. And – Shiozaki, right?"

"Yes, sir?" she asked.

"No jewellery over your uniform." He held up his hands as if to ward off a response. "It's a blanket ban, I've got to treat it all the same."

"I understand, sir. May I wear it underneath the uniform?"

"Yes, as long as it's not visible, or there's an outline or anything like that. Of course, you also have to remove it for Gym. Speaking of which," he paused to fling an armful of blue gym uniforms out at the class, "If there are no further issues, all of you get changed and meet me out on the field."

Once they were out there, Mr Aizawa introduced them to the quirk apprehension test. It certainly sounded intimidating, but as he explained the different events Midoriya realised that Pressure Drop would let him breeze through it.

That being said, he had to admit it took the wind out of his sails somewhat when Mr Aizawa announced that the last-place student would be expelled. He briefly considered cracking some joke about putting people under pressure, but decided that it just wasn't the time. Instead, he busied himself taking the test to the best of his abilities. Sure enough, Pressure Drop gave him boosts in all of the running and jumping events, as well as allowing him a score of a little over 600 metres in the throwing. Even in events like the grip strength test, he found he was able to get a small but noticeable boost out of careful application of his jets of air. Being able to use gusts of wind and pressure in so many physical events gave him a taste of what it might be like to have an enhancement quirk. He wondered if he'd ever meet someone who wanted to get rid of one – someone so strong they broke their own bones, or something like that. He smiled. UA was a big school, after all. If ever there was a place to find out about people who might need his help, it was there.

In between rounds, he found himself chatting with Kirishima. The other boy seemed familiar, and when he hardened his forearm into rock to help demonstrate a point Midoriya pointed at him and yelled "Aha! That's how I know you!"

"Y-yeah", said a slightly deflated Kirishima, "didn't you recognise me?"

"Not with that red hair", replied Midoriya honestly. Kirishima looked put out, and for some reason Ashido was glaring at him, so he realised he must have somehow put his foot in it. Was the other boy – so brash and confident – embarrassed that he dyed his hair? "Uh, I mean, with all that dust and debris in it after the entry exam it looked kind of dull. I, uh, wasn't expecting it to be so bright!" Apparently mollified by his meagre attempt at a save, the rest of the class started paying attention to more interesting things, such as their own performance.

At the end of the trials, Aizawa showed them a hologrammatic leaderboard. Midoriya found that he had placed in the top 5, which pleased him immensely – and his good mood was only further improved when Aizawa revealed his ruse and announced that they would all remain in his class, at least for the time being.

They all made their way back to homeroom, and got there before Mr Aizawa. Midoriya realised this was a perfect opportunity to explain the reality of his quirk and made his way to the front of the class. He rapped on the desk a couple of times for quiet, and said "Before anything else, I feel like I need to clear some stuff up about my quirk. It's kind of a weird one." He had originally considered lying about his quirk, claiming that Pressure Drop was his only power. He had dismissed the idea almost as quickly as it occurred to him – the truth was bound to come out sooner or later, so it might as well be on his terms.

"How weird can it be?", asked Mina, "You just control air and wind and stuff, don't you?" Most of the rest of the class made affirmative noises. "I mean it's cool and all, but it's not even the only elemental power in the class." Kaminari let a spark run up and down his fingers. The only demonstration Todoroki made of his quirk was to give them all a frosty look.

Midoriya smiled ruefully "You're half right. That power is called Pressure Drop".

"Nice." Towards the back of the class, Jirou was pointing finger guns at him.

"It allows me to manipulate air pressure and air currents." He gave a brief demonstration by blowing a loose sheet of paper from the back of the room into his hand. It turned out to be a sign-up sheet for the school's Go club, and he put it to one side.

Tsuyu poked the corner of her mouth inquisitively "Why are you calling it your 'power', though? Isn't that a little old-fashioned?"

"Kinda reminds me of those old interviews with Crimson Riot, where he's talking about people's Meta Abilities", mused Kirishima.

"The truth is, Pressure Drop isn't my quirk. My quirk is called Give and Take", he said clearly and calmly. "I can take other people's quirks and use them with limited effectiveness. I can also give those quirks to other people, who also use them with reduced power, or return them to the original holder who gets it back at full strength, good as new." The class were all staring at him now. Some were fascinated, but a lot of them were intimidated. Only Bakugo was bored. "The other difference is when I take a mutation-type quirk it becomes an emitter-type. So, uh, if I took Shoji's quirk I could choose to grow the extra arms or not. But I could probably only grow four arms instead of six, or maybe I couldn't grow so many extra hands or something.."

"Woah..." breathed Kaminari. "So, you could turn Tokoyami into a human?"

"I _beg_ your pardon!" squawked Tokoyami indignantly. Behind him, Dark Shadow pointed at Kaminari and ran one finger along its throat.

Midoriya cleared his throat. "People with mutation-type quirks are still people, Kaminari. Frankly, I don't think we should still need to have this discussion in the year 2265."

Mina punched the air and cheered "Say it loud! I'm mutant and proud!" Tsuyu and Koda clapped politely.

"Alright, geez!" cried Kaminari. "Tokoyami, look man, what I said came out really dumb. I didn't actually mean, like, anything hateful. I know some people like to give mutants a hard time, and that's not what I want."

"I understand, Kaminari. Midoriya, I must ask that you do not take my quirk. Even in a reduced state, Dark Shadow can be unpredictable. I would hate for you to get hurt."

"Oh yeah, totally. I just want to make a blanket statement now, I'm not going to take anyone's quirk without asking, or unless it's an emergency or something." Several of his classmates were visibly relieved by this. Midoriya was a little hurt, but if he were honest he couldn't blame them for finding his quirk sinister. It certainly had the potential to hurt people, if used carelessly.

"Define emergency", said Jirou in a challenging tone.

"Oh, man. Uh, so suppose we need to blow something up but Bakugo's hands are restrained. Or I guess if someone's quirk went out of control, and for whatever reason Mr Aizawa wasn't around to help. Stuff like that."

"That sounds reasonable", commented Yaoyorozu. Slowly but surely, the last dregs of the tense atmosphere were drifting away. "So is Pressure Drop your only quirk right now?"

"No, I also have telepathy. It used to belong to this poor girl who couldn't turn it off, and it was driving her crazy. So, uh, now she can jump really high. It also gave her horrible headaches. I don't have nearly the range she used to, but I still get the headaches, so I don't use it."

The door slid open and Mr Aizawa shambled into the room. "Midoriya, get back to your desk", he said by way of a greeting. Midoriya scrambled to obey, and hid a grin when he saw Mr Aizawa notice the Go club sheet and murmur "Huh, wondered where that went". He slumped down into his chair and surveyed the students. "Most days, this final period is going to be used to continue any previous lessons or just to catch up. There's not really anything to catch up on today, so you might as well all leave early." He waved a hand at them vaguely, and they realised this was the closest thing to a formal dismissal they were likely to get.

As hyped up as the students may all have been, the lustre very quickly started to fade. The truth was, apart from the initial excitement of being taught by a pro hero, most of the lessons were much the same as they might have been in any other school. Ectoplasm may have been able to use his clones to speak to multiple students at once, but all the clones were still discussing ordinary mathematics. The exception, of course, was hero studies. While he had known that All Might was teaching at UA, Midoriya had assumed that he would only be seeing the Number One Hero on select occasions. Thus, he was delighted when the Symbol of Peace burst into the room on their second day and announced loudly that they would all be taking part in team battle training. Midoriya may have already had a brief encounter with his idol, but that hardly made it less exciting. He'd grabbed his costume along with the others and hurried off to change.

The boys reached their assigned locker room and set about getting into their various costumes, each a mix of excited and nervous. Midoriya was absorbed in his own little world until he heard Mineta's distinctive voice asking "What are you _doing_?" in an incredulous tone.

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing, shortstack?" snapped Bakugo, "I'm getting changed!"

"With _make-up_?"

Midoriya poked his head out, and found that he was not the only rubbernecker. Sure enough, Bakugo was applying thick black eyeliner. The contrast against his fair skin and overall light colouring was striking. His jagged domino mask lay to one side, next to a pair of heavy-looking gauntlets. In the costume's original conception these had resembled oversized hand grenades, but Midoriya had been able to talk his friend down to a leaner, more compact design based on what had originally been the under-layer of the grenade gauntlets. Now Bakugo looked almost like a metalhead, with rows of studded bracers on his forearms.

"It's for my mask, genius. I don't like masks that leave bare skin around the eyes, it just looks dumb. So, eyeliner." He finished applying it and put on his mask. "This is heavy-duty shit, man. Gotta be, to work for a costume."

"Like stage make-up, right?" asked Kirishima. At Mineta's questioning look, he elaborated "It's gotta be heat resistant, stuff like that. I considered it for my own costume, but I don't think it's really me."

"I've never seen much point myself", commented Kuroiro.

Bakugo took a deep breath, no doubt to vociferously explain his preferred style of costume, but then deflated. He shot Kuroiro a dirty look and a dirtier hand gesture. The other boy, for his part, merely laughed and got back to changing.

They met the girls out in the training ground, and Midoriya was delighted with the variety of costumes on display. The motley crew ranged from Jirou and Kaminari's almost civilian outfits to Aoyama's costume, the most elaborate of the bunch. Midoriya's own costume was broadly based on a design he had worked out with his mother, years ago. The basis was a green jumpsuit that balanced toughness with flexibility. His gloves were especially sturdy, on the logic that many of the quirks he might acquire in an emergency could be hand-based, and it wouldn't help anyone to go shooting lasers from his hands by accident. He completed the ensemble with a thoroughly packed utility belt and a pair of bright red boots based loosely on his preferred brand of trainers.

All Might ran through the scenario, with villains defending a nuclear weapon and heroes attempting to neutralise them. This done, he produced as if from nowhere the ballot boxes by which the teams would be determined. Naturally, Midoriya's Villain Team F was the first hero team called, up against Shoji and Jirou's Villain Team C. Team C promptly made their way into the hideout to prepare their defences against the incoming heroes.

Midoriya had found himself on a team with Tsunotori, one of the students he hadn't yet had an opportunity to spend much time with. He discovered, in quick succession, that she preferred to be called Pony, that she was American (or rather, half-American but had grown up there and so thought of herself as American first and Japanese second) and that she was confident about their chances. For her costume, she looked almost like a combination of a cowgirl and the horse that cowgirl was riding. Midoriya felt certain, though he was not sure why, that she would be a sure-fire hit with kids.

"So, uh, what's your quirk do?" he asked. "If it's something that'll let us work around their hearing, we're in luck."

"Horn Cannon!", replied Pony, "I can take my horns off and they fly around!"

"Fly around?" he asked, as he began to work this new ability into his plans.

"Sure!" She demonstrated by launching one horn and having it circle their heads. It reattached itself to her head with a neat click. "They can go pretty fast."

"Cool!" he exclaimed. "In fact, I think I already know a way we can use that to win!"

He explained his plan, and her key role in it. Pony's smile grew broader and brighter until she was positively beaming. At just that moment, All Might called out "Hero Team, begin!"

_End Notes: Hot on the heels of Chapter 1, here's Chapter 2. At time of writing, I'm about 1,800 words into Chapter 3, or about halfway to where I want to be. I cannot promise to update this often going forward, but this fic just has its hooks in me right now._

_Please find below my ends notes for both Chapters 1 and 2._

_Pressure Drop is the name of a song, originally by Toots and the Maytals. Punk rocker Jirou, however, is probably more familiar with the cover by The Specials. It's a fun and lively song, I like it._

_As for the switch-up in class members: Midoriya's performance in the entrance exam was dramatically different than in canon. For this reason, everyone else in his testing ground also had at least a slightly different performance. The other students haven't been directly affected, but there will be indirect changes. For example, suppose in canon Aoyama scored higher than Student X. In this fic, Midoriya smashed some of the robots Aoyama would have gotten, so Student X now scores higher than Aoyama. So it goes._

_The most immediate and striking difference between this fic and canon is Midoriya's friendship with Bakugo. Without any obvious reason to look down on him, I consider it unlikely Bakugo would have developed his canonical contempt for Midoriya. Their friendship, by the way, is the reason they dropped the names Deku and Kacchan. Simply put, they've moved beyond that point.*_

_In addition, we have a more confident and outgoing Midoriya. Normally that would be a good thing, and overall he's in a much better place right now than he would be in canon or in many other fics - but, occasionally, it does lead to trouble he might have avoided. In this case, a shouting match with Iida._

_* Or at least it's the Watsonian reason. The Doylist reason is that I think the name Kacchan is silly, and if I have to sacrifice Deku to be rid of it then that's an acceptable loss._


	3. The Battle Trials

The hero team entered the building through a ground floor window and hunkered down in a room that seemed easily defensible. Midoriya put Pressure Drop back on its mental shelf and closed his eyes. This done, he called forward Telepathy and activated it. His consciousness swelled out from him like a bubble, swiftly encompassing Pony and then growing beyond her, onwards and outwards. As it passed over his teammate he felt a mild twinge of pain and detected the meandering thoughts of someone trying not to think. It didn't help much, but he appreciated the attempt. A few moments later, he felt two more twinges and then started hearing brief snatches of sound, as if there were a conversation going on a few rooms away.

He deactivated Telepathy and replaced it with Pressure Drop. "They're on either the fourth or fifth floor", he told Pony.

"Got it!", she replied, determined. They set off for the stairwell, ready to put the plan in motion.

They knew they had no chance of remaining hidden from Shoji and Jirou, so they focused on moving quickly. When they reached the fourth floor they headed from room to room in a quick search pattern. Midoriya was only broadly aware of the location of the enemy team, so the two of them took parallel paths towards the corner.

Naturally, Jirou was waiting for him, ready for combat in guard position. "I heard you coming about a mile away", she said confidently as her jacks waved slowly in the air behind her. "You and – ah, here she is." Sure enough, Pony had come into the room by another door and promptly had a close encounter with Jirou's brass-tipped earlobes. She skidded to a halt in time to avoid an eye injury, though only just.

Jirou turned to smirk at Pony, and that was all the opening Midoriya needed to reach out with Give and Take. He felt a pang of guilt as her eyes widened in shock and her hands rushed up to her ears. She activated her headset and called out "Shoji, look out! They've got stun grenades!"

Midoriya leapt on her and grappled her to the ground. He wasn't sure if it was the element of surprise, her continuing disorientation or some connection between her earphone jacks and her sense of balance but it was much easier than he expected. He quickly managed to bind her arms together behind her in the capture tape.

"Jirou is eliminated!" called out All Might over their headset network.

Midoriya returned her quirk to her as she sat up. She gasped, "Was that your quirk?"

"Yeah"

"Holy crap! That's the scariest thing that's ever happened to me!"

"Sorry. But, uh, we gotta go". He nodded to Pony and the two of them sped off down the corridor. His telepathic recon proved accurate, and they soon saw one of Shoji's eyes poking its way out of a doorway on the end of a long, fleshy stalk. The eye spotted them, and the rest of Shoji soon followed behind and blocked the doorway.

"You did well to get past Jirou, but this is the only way in" he said as he spread his six massive arms wide. "Good luck".

Pony let out a loud and enthusiastic "YEE-HAW!" and charged towards him, horns forward. He blocked her with two of his left hands and she twisted around in his grip, closing the gap and getting into striking range. He blocked her punches, though he was forced to take a single step back.

Midoriya strode up to the ongoing fight, unhurried. As he approached, he heard Shoji grunt out "You'll run out of time eventually." Shoji blocked a wild swing and attempted to shove Pony back out of her shorter reach. For her own part, she managed to stop her skid backwards and dig in her heels. She muttered something in English that sounded like a curse.

He pointed to the bomb behind Shoji and said, calmly, "No we won't."

Shoji manifested an eyestalk on the back of his shoulder and looked behind him. Just as he did, Pony's other two horns smashed their way in through the window, a roll of capture tape slung between them. The horns sped towards the bomb, and flung their tape over it.

"The Hero team wins!", shouted All Might enthusiastically.

The three of them made their way back to the stairwell. Along the way they met Jirou, and untied her. The four students then walked back to the rest of the class together, and though half of them had to endure the chagrin of defeat all of them were excited to know that they had just been through their first real bit of hero training.

In the stairwell, somewhere between the second and third floor, Midoriya looked over his shoulder and said "Hey, Jirou? I'm, uh, I'm sorry I scared you."

She sighed. "Man, don't worry about it. I probably should have expected something like that."

They were greeted with cheers and applause from the rest of the class. Behind them, several key moments of the match were highlighted on the glowing screens. "Well done, all of you!", boomed All Might, "Now, before we go into analysis, there's just something I want to clear up. When I said the heroes have to secure the weapon, I didn't mean with the capture tape. Just touching it would have sufficed." Pony and Midoriya turned bright red as some of the class chuckled, though not unkindly. "Nonetheless, the intent was clear and you certainly did capture the weapon!"

The two teams were called upon to explain their plans, and then the floor was opened to discussion. Naturally, the first hot topic was Pony's ability to control more than two horns. "Yup!", she chirped, "Four's my limit for now, but I hope to do even more eventually!"

"Cool!", exclaimed Kirishima, "And it was really great how they were, like, secretly the key to the plan while the two of you were going through the building. It was like you had a third team member, sneaking up the side of the building!"

Ashido jumped in the air enthusiastically. "I was watching them like, go on horns! You can do it!"

"Indeed", said All Might, "And it was a valuable example of the use of alternative entry points. Just because you've blocked the only door doesn't always mean you've blocked the only entrance. All of you should keep that in mind going forward, lest a crafty adversary make good use of a window, or anything else like that."

Pony rubbed the back of her arm. "To be honest, it was Midoriya's idea. I just kinda did what I was told."

"No way!", cried Midoriya. "You took on Shoji one on one, that was super brave of you! If you hadn't rushed him like that, I bet he could have clobbered both of us before we even got in the room!"

"Probably, yeah", said Shoji bluntly. His tone made it clear that it was no brag, just the painful truth.

"Now, onto Jirou and her stun grenade", continued Yaoyorozu.

"My hearing suddenly went all muffled, what was I supposed to think?" she replied defensively.

Yaoyorozu held up her hands placatingly. "I didn't mean to criticise. The fact is, you encountered an unknown danger and your first reaction was to warn your teammate. That's good thinking."

"Just so!" boomed All Might. "You kept your mind on the task at hand even in a distressing situation! And you, young Shoji – you stayed at your post. That's good too."

"It is?" asked Mineta, "But shouldn't he have come to the rescue or something?"

"That is precisely what he should not have done", declared All Might. "It is a matter of instinct to come to the aid of someone who needs it. Often times, that instinct is especially strong when the one in trouble is a young woman. We could talk all day about historical reasons for this, but the fact is I'm not qualified for that. The important thing is that the two of you had a plan that relied on one of you staying with the bomb and one being further away."

"That's right", said Jirou. "We figured that we'd get more use out of our hearing if we were at opposite corners of the floor. Like how two radars can both locate the same thing." She threaded her fingers together in front of her, to illustrate the idea.

All Might nodded. "And for that plan to work, each of you placed a great deal of trust in the other. For Shoji to rush to Jirou's aid without her requesting it would have been a betrayal of that trust."

Shoji shrugged. "I figured she knew what she was doing"

Jirou smiled. "And I appreciate it. Like All Might said, there's a lot of chivalry crap in the world and it's like – well, it's nice to know you could rely on me." She slumped. "Thought you could rely on me, at least. Three cheers for Jirou the hero-wannabe."

"That's hero-in-training", corrected All Might gently. "You have a long journey ahead of you, just like everyone in this class. But I'm confident you'll all make it. Now it's time for two more teams to take to the field. It will be the hero team of Ojiro and Kirishima vs the villain team of Yaoyorozu and Kuroiro!"

"Your quirk is something to do with dark objects, as I understand?" asked Yaoyorozu as she produced a thin metal wire from the palm of her hand. Kuroiro wasn't certain what she'd do with it, but he assumed it was part of the array of barriers and traps she had been creating for the last couple of minutes.

Kuroiro nodded. "So basically, I can absorb myself into anything black. I move pretty quick when I'm absorbed, and I'm completely invisible to the outside world."

"I see. And can you manipulate the objects you possess?"

He shrugged. "Barely. Honestly, I wouldn't rely on that as a match winner."

Yaoyorozu nodded. "Fair enough. I imagine the first thing you'll want is more space to work with. This building is a little too grey for my tastes."

"Sure."

She held her hands over her stomach and produced a paint can labelled 'BLACKEST BLACK' along with a large brush. "Have fun."

Kuroiro smirked as he painted thick black lines down the halls of the fifth floor. With him as an ambusher outside the bomb room and Yaoyorozu's traps within the room, those two muscleheads wouldn't know what hit them.

Soon afterwards, the match started. Kuroiro lurked in the longest of the lines he'd painted along the floor. He realised with a start that his mind had wandered off and that he could hear the hero team. Fortunately for him, they were still on the floor below. The hero team seemed to be checking room to room, and to their credit they were at least trying to be quiet about it. He waited for them to reach his floor.

"What in the world?", asked the tail guy softly.

"Must be an oil slick", replied the other guy. "You know, a trap."

'_You're more right than you know'_, thought Kuroiro. He followed behind them, feeling like a shark trailing its prey. Soon the two of them would reach a corner, and as the one in front rounded it and left the tail guy he would strike. The corner would only make a split second's difference, but that would be all the time he needed when he launched his perfect ambush. He'd bind the guy with the tail (Ojiro? He thought that was right), sink back into his paint and then, if he was really lucky, he'd get a good opportunity to ambush the other guy as well.

At least, that was what he thought until he leapt up from the paint and was immediately hit in the face with a spinning kick. Tail guy followed up with a couple of stiff punches, and before he knew any more he was wound up in capture tape. He slumped against the wall and muttered "Well, fuck me I guess."

Ojiro shrugged. "My spatial awareness is pretty good." He hurried off with Kirishima to continue the room-by room sweep. Kuroiro had nothing to do but sit tight and hope Yaoyorozu did better than he had.

He heard loud sounds of thumping and crashing from around the corner and further down the hall. He was sorely tempted to lean around the corner and take a look at what was going on, but he got the idea that this would be frowned upon. At any rate, he wouldn't want to distract the other two and interfere with the match after he had been knocked out.

As it turned out, he didn't have long to wait. The noises from the two heroes intensified, and after a particularly violent crash he heard one of them yell "Get her!". A moment later, All Might announced that the hero team had won. Kuroiro sighed. Apparently, the muscleheads had been ready for them after all.

Koda wasn't entirely sure what to make of his teammate, Mineta. All he really knew was that the other boy had tied for last in the previous day's quirk apprehension test; and while that might not have been a good omen to this trial, maybe his quirk just wasn't very well-suited for athletics. Koda could sympathise.

"So", said Mineta, "Tokoyami's got a bird head, and Dark Shadow's kind of a bird monster...ghost...thing. Do you think you could control them?"

Koda shrugged.

"Right, right, I guess we won't know until you try. Well, I have a plan in mind for Aoyama, so worst case scenario we'll still have the numbers advantage. Well, kind of."

Koda gave him an encouraging thumbs-up.

"You don't talk much, do you?"

Koda shook his head.

"No problem, I can talk enough for both of us!", declared Mineta.

Koda had noticed.

"You and me, buddy, you and me against the world!"

At that moment, All Might gave them the signal to begin. He slipped Mineta in an open window, and waited for his partner to open the front door from the inside. Truth be told, he could have just ripped the door off its hinges, but this had been Mineta's idea. He had declared that a show of teamwork would be just the thing to make a good impression on All Might, and Koda could see the wisdom in it.

They crept through the building, taking their time until they could find the bomb room. Unfortunately, they were ambushed by Aoyama and his navel laser beam. Koda ducked back behind a doorway, keeping one hand over his comrade. Mineta clambered up over his hand until he was standing over his shoulder. He plucked a ball off his head and muttered, "Here goes nothing".

A well-aimed throw from Mineta took Aoyama's laser out of commission. The purple ball stuck to his belt, precisely in the middle of the lens. Koda shot his diminutive teammate a thumbs-up and continued forward to capture Aoyama.

His opponent leapt back and touched one hand to his ear. "Tokoyami, I am _hors de combat_", he said. He paused for a moment before saying "Indeed" and sprinting off down the corridor. Koda grabbed Mineta around the waist and ran after him, determined to cut off his escape. Mineta, for his part, continued his barrage of sticky balls. However, firing from a moving platform seemed to have thrown off his aim, as none of the others hit Aoyama – a couple hit his cape, but all they did was bunch it up.

The building was getting darker the further into it they went. At first Koda thought they were just moving away from the windows, but then he realised that some of the lights were broken. In fact, more of the lights were broken the further into the building they went. Eventually, there would be only one light in any given hallway, lending the arena a dusky and sinister atmosphere. He felt increasingly like he was being lead into a dangerous position, a feeling vindicated when the claws of Dark Shadow, grown to a monstrous size, slashed out of a side door to rip him asunder.

Koda skidded to a halt just in time to avoid the attack. He turned on his heels and sprinted away, Mineta leaning behind him to fling balls at the great beast. It was almost certainly ineffectual, but perhaps it was helping him feel better.

They were most of the way to the other side of the building when they realised they were no longer being chased.

"Holy cow", breathed Mineta, "I think my whole life just flashed before my eyes."

"Yeah", panted Koda, customary shyness briefly shocked out of him.

"We're gonna need to avoid Tokoyami."

"Yeah."

"Actually, if we could both like move to Shiketsu, or Ketsubutsu or China or something that'd be great."

Koda gave him a dubious look.

"What? Chinese girls are cute. Especially the military ones."

Koda rolled his eyes.

"You're right, you're right, if I can think about girls I can think about the match. OK." He squeezed one of the balls on his head repetitively, like a stress toy, and started to pace.

Koda slumped against the wall and took a deep breath.

"You know", said Mineta, "The real pain is that we ran so far. We're practically back at the stairs."

"The stairs!", exclaimed Koda. "Perfect!"

"What do you mean?"

"There are two sets of stairs", he replied.

Mineta's eyes lit up.

The two of them made their way up to the next floor over. After the dim light of the floor they had been on, the ordinary conditions of this floor were striking. They made their way over to the other stairwell as quietly as they could – which, in Koda's case, was more than one might expect. They crept down the stairwell, and Koda checked his watch. They still had almost five minutes left, which he figured should be enough time to creep to the bomb room.

It was silent. There was no sign of Tokoyami, and Koda hoped that he was on patrol near where he had last seen them. They were almost there when a brilliant laser beam shot from out of the dark, forcing Koda to flinch back. "_On ne passe pas!_" declared Aoyama, his voice coming through the gloomy doorway. Koda wasn't sure what that meant, but he assumed it was bad news.

"What the hell?" yelled Mineta, "That ball should still be stuck there! It shoulda stuck there for hours!"

"Bold of you to assume it was laser-proof", came the reply – along with another laser, for good measure. Judging by the sounds he could heard dimly, as if through several walls, Tokoyami was aware of their ploy. Koda dreaded the thought of going toe-to-toe with Dark Shadow, but was spared this when All Might called out "Time's up. Villain Team wins!"

Bakugo had been pleasantly surprised by his teammate. At first, Uraraka seemed like any other bubbly, cheery, girly-girl; but she had real determination. Also, she had thrown a ball into space the previous day, so she had that going for her.

The walking Christmas tree on the villain team also had determination – she needed guts to chew him out on the first day of school. He wasn't sure about the other girl, the one with bright pink skin and black eyes. She certainly had energy, but he had no idea what she had underneath that. There was a chance that when she was in a tough spot she'd fold under the pressure, but that was only a chance.

He revised his estimate upwards the first time he stepped on what seemed like an ordinary floor panel and put his foot right through it. Looking down at the hole, he saw that it had been fouled up with acid and then a seemingly-undamaged plate had been put back over it. So, he had a real match on his hands after all. He grinned a predatory grin.

"Hey. Infinity girl."

"Infinity girl?", she asked.

"Can you make me a little lighter, instead of zero-g?"

"I'm afraid not. What did you have in mind?"

"I want to be light enough not to fall through any more pit-traps but still able to walk around like normal."

"Oh! OK, I can do that." She touched his boots, his baggy combat trousers and his metal blast collar. "There. Try walking now."

He took a few experimental steps, and though he tried to compensate for the change in weight he was still taken by surprise by just how great a difference it made. He nodded to his teammate and they continued their way through the building; at a much lower volume than they had before. He stood on several more loose panels, but between his reduced weight and his heightened awareness of the ground beneath his feet he managed to avoid falling through any of them.

The traps got more common and closer together the further they advanced into the building, until by the time they reached the fourth floor it was practically impossible to continue. Bakugo got himself floated across a particularly treacherous stretch of corridor, followed shortly after by his seasick-looking partner. She leaned against a wall and breathed slowly.

"What's up with you?", he asked softly.

"My quirk – side effect", she huffed, "Gimme a minute, I'll be fine." True to her word, she straightened back up and nodded. "Let's go."

They headed off once again. Bakugo could tell that she was still nauseous, but she was keeping a tight lid on it. He decided to trust her judgement, and didn't say anything about it. Shortly after this, they found the bomb room. Contrary to the tactics employed by previous villain teams, the two girls had both hung back in the room itself. The plant girl had wrapped the bomb up in her vines and suspended it from the ceiling, which Bakugo supposed might have been a good move against any other team. He looked at it carefully, and the bomb moved further back into the room – the vines, it seemed, were still under the girl's control.

"Aaaw, how'd you get here so fast?" asked the pink one. Bakugo guessed he would have to learn their names eventually, but he couldn't really be bothered at that moment.

"You think you can jump for it?", Bakugo asked his teammate.

"I saw your jump yesterday", replied vine-head. "I can move the bomb quicker than you can move. You can't reach it."

"Oh yeah?", asked Uraraka, "We'll see about that!" She took a brief running start, clapped her hands together and leapt. Just as the other girl had predicted, the bomb moved out of the arc of her jump. Uraraka was sure to land short.

That is, until Bakugo made his own jump, pressed his hands into the small of her back and sent her soaring with a powerful blast. The zero-gravity girl found herself accelerated forward at an incredible speed, flung head-first into the bomb. Either by luck or judgement, she clung onto the bomb and All Might called out "Hero team wins!" She detached herself from it with a few pained noises and let herself drop to the floor.

The other girls attempted to congratulate them on the win, but she stormed past them and slapped Bakugo backhanded, directly in the face.

"What the hell was that for?!" he roared.

Undeterred, she stood on tiptoes and looked him right in the eye. "You launched me into a thornbush!"

"You've got a faceplate on that dumb helmet!"

"There's no faceplate on my boobs!" she yelled back.

"Then get a stab vest built into it!"

"Good idea!" She stuck her hand out angrily. "Congrats on the win!"

"You too!" he shouted back as he shook her hand. "We make a great team!"

Kaminari adjusted his jacket and smiled encouragingly at his teammate. Todoroki might seem intimidating at first, but Kaminari was sure that when he got to know him he'd turn out to be a normal guy.

And then he froze the entire building.

So much for normal, then. "Did you just cover the whole building?"

"Indeed."

Kaminari noticed that their breath was misting up before their faces. "Whoa, cool. Seems almost unfair to the heroes."

Todoroki shrugged. "If they're smart, they'll probably be able to find a way in. They just need to think of it as infiltrating a fortress."

"Oh yeah, like ninja!"

"Hm", replied Todoroki. At that moment, a pair of loud thuds came from below. Todoroki nodded. "Unless I miss my guess, they should be trying to break down the door."

Kaminari peered out one of the frozen-open windows. "Yeah, you called it." Oddly enough, whenever Shoda hit the layer of ice there would be another crack a few seconds later. He shrugged. Quirks were weird.

"Excellent." He touched his left hand to a particular flume of ice. "Keep an eye out for Asui, I expect her to try scaling the building."

"You gonna melt it when she's halfway up?"

"That's step one. She'll probably be able to cling on despite that, so that's when you electrify the water."

Kaminari held up one finger. "Hold up. Isn't her costume made of rubber?" He was aware that he wasn't exactly what you'd call a genius, but he liked to think he had a decent grasp on science as applied to electricity.

"Partially, but she's got enough metal gadgets that it shouldn't be a problem. Those enormous goggles, for instance."

He peered out the window, and sure enough Asui was scaling the side of the building. She was making a slow go of it, apparently slowed down by the ice. "Here she comes, you'd better melt it quick."

Todoroki obliged, and Asui scrambled to cling on to the brick wall. She had just managed to get a good grip on it when Kaminari warned Todoroki "Now!" and electrified the artificial waterfall. There was an anguished croak and a thud as Asui landed face-up. Shoda abandoned his attempts to break in to check on her.

"Well", said Kaminari, "I guess that answers the age-old question."

Todoroki raised one eyebrow.

"You know: what happens to a frog when it's struck by lightning?" He was slightly put out when Todoroki didn't respond. He took another look out the window, and saw that she was still out cold. "Hey, uh, she's not in any danger is she?"

"How much of a shock did you give her?"

"I dunno, enough to knock her out."

Todoroki shrugged. "If she were in any real trouble, emergency robots would have been dispatched to bring her to recovery girl." He touched the windowsill with his right hand and re-froze the front of the building. "All we need do now is wait out the clock."

Kaminari sat back and wished he had thought to bring his phone with him. Shoda eventually left his teammate and resumed his attempts to break down the door. When that didn't work he tried his luck with the equally iced-over windows. To Kaminari's surprise he managed to break through, but unfortunately for him the round ended before he could make much progress.

Shoda shot Kaminari a dirty look when the villain team came downstairs, but his attitude softened when Kaminari helped him load the downed Asui onto the waiting robots' stretcher. Todoroki strode past them as if he hadn't even seen them.

"Well that was uneventful", commented Mineta as the assembled students watched the screens.

"Once you get past the electrocution, sure" commented Ojiro.

The crowd winced as they saw Todoroki ignore his teammate and his opponents, and walk away from them stone-faced. "What the hell's his problem?", asked Jirou.

"Now, now, there'll be time enough for questions when these four get back. Or, uh, three if young Asui still needs the rest. Let's save our commentary for then."

While Midoriya could see All Might's point, he couldn't help but wonder – why did Todoroki not look at all pleased to have won?

_Thank you for reading chapter 3._

_The battle trials were originally only supposed to be the first half of chapter 3, which would have been followed by some more slice-of-life based scenes of our heroes getting settled into their new lives at UA. However, the thing started running away from me so I split it off. Chapter 4 may be a little shorter as a result, but that remains to be seen._

_As for this chapter itself, I wanted to introduce the reader to every member of the variant 1-A we have in this story. I feel like everyone got their little moment of screentime, even if it was only brief. I'm afraid they can't all be main characters, folks. This chapter is probably the most time any chapter will spend away from our boy Midoriya._

_If you have any questions at all, or if you just want to leave feedback of any description, please feel free to leave a comment._


	4. Getting to Know You

_Getting to Know You_

As they were heading into school the next morning, Bakugo was apparently in an inquisitive mood. "Hey Midoriya, I have a potentially blasphemous question."

He looked up from his phone. "Shoot."

"Would you ever take All Might's quirk? You know, just so we could all figure it out once and for all?"

Midoriya scratched the back of his head. "It's funny you should mention that, Bakugo. After the first day, he pulled me aside to talk to me privately. Apparently, his quirk can't be forcibly taken. I'm not sure why it was so important for him to tell me that, but I guess he's had to deal with that sort of thing before."

"You serious?"

"Yeah."

Bakugo whistled a long, low note. "Man. Imagine that, though. Being the Number One hero and you're just like, today I'd better train how to resist quirk theft in case some jackass with a quirk that makes no sense attacks me"

Midoriya shrugged. "He's gotta have contingency plans for everything, right? Like, how to escape from a runaway moon rocket."

"How to defeat a giant slug monster using only a tuning fork."

"What to do if the emperor gets kidnapped by ninjas."

"What to do if evil All Might from a parallel universe attacks him."

Midoriya thought that one over for a moment. "Say, Bakugo? Do you think somewhere out there, there's an alternate universe where we have different quirks?"

Bakugo fell briefly silent. "I guess there might be. I dunno, having that gravity quirk would be pretty neat. Or Creation."

"Yeah. Hey, what do you suppose I would have?"

Bakugo scoffed. "Does it matter? Even if there was some alternate world where you had All Might's quirk you'd still be a goddamn dork."

At around the same time, two of the other students were also on their way to school. Uraraka turned to the girl next to her and asked, "Say, Shiozaki?"

"What's that, Uraraka?"

"If there were 20 villains, and each of them had one of our quirks, who do you think would be the biggest threat?"

"A difficult question. I suppose the obvious answer would be Midoriya, or perhaps Yaoyorozu or Todoroki. The people who have to be responsible with their quirks to avoid collateral damage, or hurting people by accident."

"Or Ashido. If she threw her acid in someone's eyes..."

Shiozaki shuddered. "Indeed, it's not a pleasant thought. Then you have those like Koda or Jirou, whose quirks might have less combat applications but could be put to nefarious ends. In fact, I can't think of any member of our class who wouldn't make a formidable adversary."

"I suppose in a way that's a good thing, right? If we're all strong enough to be scary, we're strong enough to be great heroes."

Shiozaki clasped her hands behind her back. "Just so, Uraraka! There was an American philosopher who said that with a powerful quirk comes a powerful responsibility to use that quirk in an upright manner. I believe we will all live up to that responsibility."

Uraraka made a dubious noise. "Mind you, we do have Mineta."

That took the wind out of Shiozaki's sails. "I will concede that some of us will need more guidance than others." She paused, "And possibly intervention from the Almighty. But we'll get there eventually."

When Mr Aizawa told them to pick a class rep one morning, the class quickly settled on the idea of holding an election. Aizawa agreed with his customary lack of enthusiasm.

"Hey, uh, can we use our quirks in the election?" asked Midoriya. Truth be told he didn't know what good his would do, but it would be nice to have the option.

Mr Aizawa paused. "As long as you don't do anything stupid, I guess it's alright."

Midoriya was about to question him further when he was struck gently on the head by something small and light. He grabbed it and found that it was a badge reading "VOTE YAOYOROZU" in bright blue letters. He turned in his seat to find Yaoyorozu throwing them out to the rest of the class. She had also taken the time to create a white silk sash and top hat for herself, and some miniature flags to stand on her desk.

He scratched the back of his head. "Well, I guess she's got this sewn up", he said to himself.

Sure enough, her impromptu electioneering won Yaoyorozu the post of Class Rep. To his very great surprise, Midoriya came in second place, and was duly elected Vice Rep. In his first official act as Vice Rep, he stood next to Yaoyorozu as she made a short speech, trying to figure out who had voted for him.

He continued his information-gathering through the morning and on into lunch, with limited success. As it happened, their lunch was interrupted by an unfamiliar alarm. The assembled heroes-in-training milled about in confusion, pulled this way and that by the stampeding crowds until a familiar voice cut through the hubbub. "1-A! 1-A students to me, please!" Midoriya turned and found Yaoyorozu standing atop a bench, speaking into a megaphone and holding a fire marshal's sign. As he approached, she passed him a pair of bright orange lights. He stood beside her and waved them, feeling like an air traffic controller.

The other students of class 1-A gathered around them, some looking worried and some merely curious. Just as Yaoyorozu was explaining the route they would take out of the building, the alarms stopped. The principal came on over the tannoy system and announced cheerfully that it had all been a false alarm.

"I do so admire that man", said Yaoyorozu companionably as they climbed down from the bench and the rest of the class drifted off to their respective lunches.

"Have you met him?" he asked. Aizawa's unique first day had denied 1-A the chance to get a look at principal Nedzu at the entrance ceremony.

She nodded. "He was one of the – proctors, I suppose, for the recommended students' entrance exam. Completely unflappable, and never in anything less than a good mood."

Midoriya supposed you would need an optimistic outlook to run UA, of all places. A regular school must be hard enough, let alone one for heroes.

"Come to think of it", continued Yaoyorozu, "There was a boy there with a quirk rather like yours. The air pressure, I mean."

"What was he like?"

"To be perfectly honest, I'm glad he's not here. He was a real boor."

"He failed?", asked Midoriya.

"Oh, he did well enough. I heard he took the offer from Shiketsu in the end. I got one myself, but it didn't really appeal."

"Huh. Hey, uh, speaking of recommended students, aren't there two in Class B?"

"Indeed there are. Let's see...there was a girl who could detach parts of her own body, and a boy who could soften things."

"Soften them?"

"I saw him turn a brick wall to jelly and walk right through it."

Midoriya boggled at her. "That's so cool!"

They decided to keep the emergency gear, just in case. It was stowed in the cupboard at the back of the class, along with all the other odds and ends Yaoyorozu created from time to time. Mr Aizawa had explained that he had little use for it, and was content to give it up as long as they didn't make anything dangerous, prohibited or otherwise inconvenient. Naturally, by the end of the week it was jam-packed.

There was another issue, or at least another potential issue. The first time he was asked to use his quirk on someone, it was Ashido ambushing him between classes. He had begged off, asking that she leave it until after school. He hoped, and was relieved to find, that by the time the day ended she had forgotten about it.

The next time it was Asui – or Tsuyu, as she preferred to be called. Again, it was an inconvenient time and he was able to put it off. However, he did start to think about why he felt so relieved when he turned them down.

At lunch that day, he tracked down Jirou. After all, she was the only person in Class 1-A to have experienced his quirk first-hand besides Bakugo, and Bakugo's perspective could be charitably described as unique. Fortunately for him she was sitting alone, one of her earphone jacks plugged into her phone. He sat down opposite her and she unplugged herself.

"What's up?" she asked casually.

He nodded. "Hey. It's, uh, kind of about when I took your quirk."

She looked unimpressed. "Seriously? How cut up do you think I am?"

He waved his hands frantically, as if to physically brush the idea away, "Nono, not like that. Some of the others have been asking me to take theirs and..." he sighed, "I don't know, I guess I wanted your opinion on it."

She shrugged. "Well it didn't hurt or anything. I dunno dude, go nuts I guess."

"It's just that – well, kids used to ask me to try it out back at my old school. They always thought it was cool at first, but whenever I did it to them they'd get all freaked out. I don't want to upset anyone, you know?"

Jirou rolled her eyes. "Sounds like they were a bunch of pussies to me."

"That's what Bakugo always used to say. Thanks, Jirou."

He spoke with Yaoyorozu, and between the two of them they arranged for the use of a gym hall after school for "irregular quirk training". The two class reps put it about that anyone who wanted to experience having their quirk taken could sign up, but that nobody had to feel any pressure to join. On the day itself, he was surprised by just how many were there. There were Ashido and Tsuyu, of course, along with Kuroiro, Shiozaki, Koda and Mineta. The majority of the rest of the class were watching from the bleachers, though Bakugo and Todoroki were nowhere to be seen. He was unsurprised by Bakugo's absence, as the other boy valued strength over anything else at the best of times. A parade of weakened versions of his classmates must have held little interest for him.

Yaoyorozu, thoughtful as ever, produced a tall freestanding mirror. Aoyama preened before it, though the rest of the students were focused on Midoriya.

Tsuyu stepped forward, her face as impassive as ever. "I suppose I should go first, seeing as how this whole thing was my idea."

Midoriya shrugged. "Actually, Ashido asked me first. I just wasn't available that day."

"I did?" pondered Ashido, "Oh, yeah! I super forgot. Don't worry Tsuyu, you can go first."

She nodded and turned back to Midoriya. He scratched the back of his head and asked "And you want me to just take your quirk?"

Tsuyu poked the corner of her mouth. "That's kind of your gimmick, right? Ribbit."

"Alright, here goes…" He reached out with Give and Take, and plucked Tsuyu's Frog Form from her body. The change was immediate, and striking. She stood up straight, and then stretched her arms over her head. Her facial features grew sharper, and indefinably more expressive. She stared at her reflection in gaping boggling wonder. It was a stark change from the stoic girl they had known.

"Wooow", she breathed, he voice both smoother and higher-pitched than normal. Then, to their surprise, she giggled. "What's with this tongue? Do you guys really live like this?" She made cheerful blubbering noises, as if she were trying to amuse a baby. "This is crazy"

"I'll say", agreed Kaminari as he filmed it all on his phone. "Hey, try jumping!"

"Good idea", she said as she hopped forward. She stumbled upon landing, and would have fallen had Pony not stepped forward and grabbed her arm. "Huh", mused Tsuyu, "I knew it wouldn't be like normal, but I didn't think it would be that bad."

"You OK?" asked Pony, as the others looked on in concern.

"I'll be fine. Can anyone think of any more tests?"

"Well, what else can you usually do?" asked Kaminari.

Yaoyorozu shook her head. "The better question would be, is there anything you normally _can't_ do, but now can?"

Tsuyu looked off into a corner, thinking. "Not really", she concluded. "I get drowsy in the cold, but without Todoroki here we can't really test that."

"Yeah, it's a real bummer", said Midoriya, "I wanted to see if his hair would change colour without his quirk."

Uraraka threw her hands up in frustration. "Dangit, now _I_ want to know!"

"Anyway, I think I'm done", interjected Tsuyu.

"Oh yeah, sure thing." Midoriya returned her quirk and she leapt up and stuck to the wall in celebration. "Much better", she croaked.

"Me next!" cheered Ashido as she jumped with excitement.

Midoriya nodded, and she held her hands out in front of her. Ashido gazed on as her skin faded from its vibrant pink to a more typical tone. Midoriya always loved watching the change take place.

Fascination changed to nightmare as Ashido took on a look of panic and screamed "Change me back, change me back!"

Immediately he released her quirk and she was bright pink once more. She panted with relief and ran her hands up and down her arms. "Oh, man…" she sighed.

"What happened?" asked Midoriya, "It's never hurt anyone before."

She shook her head. It took her a couple of tries to speak aloud. "It didn't hurt. I, I went numb all over." She sighed again. "Now I just feel stupid."

"Don't", he reassured her, "I don't know why Give and Take did that, but if I suddenly couldn't feel anything at all I'd freak out too."

"Do you want to go sit down for a minute?" asked Kirishima.

"No, I'm good. Midoriya, do me again."

"You sure?"

"Lay it on me, buddy."

"Right." Kaminari had once again started filming. Again her skin faded and then changed colour altogether. She shuddered, but did not speak. Her eyes, too, changed, her 'blacks' becoming more typical whites. Curiously, her horns remained in place. Midoriya had never before met someone with a mutation totally unrelated to their quirk; he assumed it came from her parents. Her hair retained its original colour, which wasn't so unusual – there'd been a girl in his old school with similarly rosey locks.

The transformation complete, she stared at her own hands, just as fascinated as Tsuyu had been. She repeatedly curled and uncurled her fingers, looking utterly mystified. "I don't get it", she said, "if you guys can't feel yourselves move, how do you – I don't know, do anything?"

"I really don't know what you mean", replied Kuroiro as the rest of the class agreed, "we can all feel just fine."

"No way", she said as she cautiously stepped over to the mirror, "I can't even feel my feet when I walk. It's still kinda weirding me out." She wiggled her fingers, and looked at them dubiously.

Pony poked her arm. "Can you feel that? How about now?"

"I…a little. Not properly."

Yaoyorozu made a soft concerned noise. "There is one possibility. I've heard of quirks that, among other things, correct for some impairment in their user. What if – and I'm sorry, but there's really no nice way to say this – you would otherwise have nerve damage?"

"Hold on, I have another idea," said Midoriya. He activated his borrowed Acid and let it idle within his body without producing any. When he looked at his reflection, the effect was unnerving. His skin and eyes had both changed, but had reddened rather than making the true leap in colour it would take to resemble Ashido. Rather than striking, he looked ill. However, he at least knew what had happened.

He could feel his uniform to an intensity he normally wouldn't, feel it move over his skin even down to his socks. He raised his arm and felt it, felt the air move around in in a way he never had before. Everything from the toes of his shoes to his hair sitting against his ears was intensely more tactile. "I get it now. You quirk somehow makes you more sensitive to touch. You're not numb, you're just used to feeling way, way more than most people."

"Huh," replied Ashido as she digested that idea. "Like, if Endeavor suddenly had hair instead of fire, he'd feel really cold?"

"Exactly! Only, uh, he can turn the fire off. I think he just prefers to leave it on."

"Well yeah, otherwise he'd be cold!" exclaimed Ashido. The rest of the class were glad to see her back in her usual high spirits, and when her quirk was returned she was well and truly back to her old self.

And so the experimentation continued. Mineta ran his hand across his head and stared into the mirror after Midoriya had taken his Pop Off. "Huh", he commented succinctly. The loss of his quirk had rendered his bubbles hair, as they had expected – but rather than a haircut, he had a deep purple buzzcut. "That's weird."

"Hmm," pondered Shiozaki, "I think I see why. You pluck off your hairballs to use your quirk, right? Perhaps it's as if you're shaving your head whenever you do that."

Her theory was born out when, after Mineta was returned to his usual state, it was her turn. Her vines became a head of long, dark brown hair hanging perfectly straight. She gave herself a brief glance in the mirror, not seeming particularly interested in her new form. Midoriya did not grow a head of vines, though he did gain prehensile hair. Given the discrepancy in their haircuts, he did not imagine he would be able to make much use of it.

As a further experiment, Yaoyorozu produced a pair of scissors and cut Shiozaki's newfound hair to shoulder length. Upon the return of her quirk, she had vines of the same length; the effect was, in the opinion of several of the boys, quite fetching. It was promptly undone when she grew her vines out to their normal length, but by that stage Midoriya was scribbling notes about the relationship between mutation-type quirks and hair, so he wasn't especially bothered.

The afternoon turned to evening as the assembled students each had a brief taste of a quirkless life. Eventually even Midoriya had to concede that he was borrowing quirks more for his own curiosity than out of any real desire to learn something, and the remaining students all drifted off on their respective journeys home. He enjoyed a friendly walk with Uraraka, at least part of the way, as they idly chatted about the day's events. They parted ways at a train station, and when Midoriya got home he set about typing up his notes and half-formed theories properly.

The next morning, Yaoyorozu found a neatly folded sheet of paper on her desk. She would have asked Mr Aizawa about it, but he was already sound asleep in the corner of the room. She opened it, and her eyebrows raised. "Everyone, get ready for a bus ride. We're going on a trip today."

"Where to?" asked Ashido excitedly.

"Rescue training."

This is fundamentally a slice-of-life chapter more than anything else, though it does at least take us through a couple of notable events at the beginning of the series. In particular, we have a different lineup of class reps (and of course so does the alternate Class 1-B) and a certain someone has broken into the school.

I acknowledge that Midoriya describing his brief chat with All Might is a breach of "show, don't tell", but the conversation at the beginning of the chapter was one of the first things I wrote for this fic, and it was always a quick back-and-forth. The simultaneous chat between the girls was also one of the first scenes written, early enough that originally Iida was taking Shiozaki's part.

The quirk experimentation is something that (given Midoriya's nature) was inevitable.


	5. Unforeseen Situation

_Unforeseen Situation_

The class reps lead 1-A out to wait for their bus. Midoriya had wondered if he and Yaoyorozu would need to corral the class before the bus arrived, but everyone seemed to content to wait in the car park, so he figured it would work itself out. When the bus arrived they managed to get aboard without too much trouble, so he supposed this class representative thing wouldn't be as hard as he might have thought.

Some of the other students were chatting idly as they boarded, and he settled in for a quiet journey until Uraraka leaned forward and waved his attention. "So, Midoriya – I've been meaning to ask something."

"Uh, go ahead."

She nodded. "What's the deal with your quirk? You know, normally a quirk would let you like, shoot lasers out of your eyes, or control the weather or something. I don't think I've never heard of anything like yours."

Midoriya held up a finger and launched himself into lecture mode. "Well, you see, Uraraka, my Give and Take is what's called a Quirk-Based Meta-Variant Quirk, or Q-Quirk – that is to say, a quirk that affects other quirks, instead of objects or people. Basically, it's derived from a relative's quirk, though while my mom has the ability to grab small objects with telepathy, I do the same with quirks." He belatedly realised that the rest of the class were enjoying the impromptu seminar and turned bright red. "Or, uh, at least that's how I figure it. To be honest, Q-Quirks are at least half-theory at this point."

Yaoyorozu nodded, "Personally I'm dubious about the whole Q-Quirk phenomenon, though I must say yours is probably the best candidate I've ever seen."

"And then there's always Mr Aizawa", pondered Uraraka. Their teacher continued dozing at the front of the bus, apparently unconcerned at being used as an example.

"Well..." pondered Yaoyorozu, "Mr Aizawa's quirk doesn't necessarily affect quirks, just the people using them. It could be that he produces some kind of energy wave that disrupts the Quirk Factor in your brain."

Naturally, Midoriya already had his notebook out and was jotting down his own personal shorthand. His frantic writing slowly eased up, and eventually he looked back at his neighbour. "Aaw, geez, sorry Uraraka. You just wanted to ask a question and I nerded out on you."

She waved his concerns off, "Don't be, it was kinda fun! You should start a podcast or something, Midoriya."

Midoriya made a confused noise.

"Yeah!" she continued enthusiastically "Like, Quirk Analysis Weekly or something. I bet I wouldn't understand half of it, but it's nice hearing someone passionate talk about what they love."

"Well, thanks! And don't sell yourself short, I bet you'd do just fine. In fact, I could do an episode all about your Zero-Gravity!"

"Yeah!" agreed Kaminari, "Do an interview!"

Uraraka blushed fiercely. Midoriya understood, he got camera-shy sometimes too.

It wasn't long before their bus pulled up at a great grey dome surrounded by trees with an incongruously bright sign outside the entrance. The students piled off the bus and milled around as they waited to be let in, or at least for something to happen. A murmur of interest turned into a bubble of excitement as their tour guide revealed herself, resplendent in her bulky white spacesuit. Uraraka, in particular, was thrilled.

Midoriya had been aware that Thirteen taught at UA, but not in what capacity. In many ways, she was the ideal choice to teach them all the ins and outs of rescue work. In a world ruled by high-profile fights that sometimes threatened to turn superheroes into professional wrestlers, Thirteen had dedicated her career to helping others – as far as Midoriya knew, she had never even lain a hand on a villain.

Thirteen gave a brief speech about how important it was for them to all use their quirks responsibly, and though Midoriya could tell she had spoken on the same topic a hundred times before (and probably would a hundred times again) once she got into the swing of things he and the rest of the class were still hanging on her every word.

After the speech, the two teachers spoke together about All Might losing track of time, or something along those lines. Midoriya was only half paying attention, the rest of his mind on the spirited debates that had broken out between students trying to decide what part of USJ looked like the most fun. He shrugged. It would have been nice to spend more time learning from the all-time great, but of course he'd be seeing him again in next week's Foundational Heroics lesson, so it was hardly the end of the world.

The excitement continued as they piled inside, until the lights flickered and a black cloud appeared over the plaza in the centre of USJ. A great crowd emerged from it, men and women of all descriptions with nothing in common but the cruel looks on their faces. Each and every one of them promised violence to anyone who crossed them, or perhaps just anyone who got in their way.

Aizawa ordered them to stay at the entrance, and in some indefinable way he was no longer their teacher but instead the senior hero on the scene. Eraserhead leapt into action, and despite the gross imbalance he was able to single-handedly stop the tide. Midoriya had heard the expression "poetry in motion" before, but he had never understood it until he watched Aizawa cut a path through the mob with an almost balletic grace. Villains were flung left and right by his long capture scarf, many of them taken out of the fight before they could even get to grips with him.

Midoriya backed towards the entrance, still enthralled by the spectacle below him. Slowly awe was overtaken by creeping dread, as he realised that sooner or later the numbers would have to tell against Aizawa.

Just as this awful thought imposed itself upon him, one of the villains manifested himself in a sprawl of black smoke, blocking their only path to the outside world. Naturally, Bakugo leapt immediately into action. Midoriya's heart stopped as his friend was swallowed by the cloud, which then spread itself across the landing. He briefly felt as if he was falling, before he briefly blacked out.

The first impression he had upon waking was of heat, so intense that it was like being hit with a wall of sensation. He opened his eyes, and everything was on fire. For a brief moment, he wondered if the black mist had teleported him to the scene of some terrible accident, until he recognised the dome far overhead. He had indeed been teleported, but only as far as USJ's aptly named Conflagration Zone. He leapt to his feet, eyes peeled for anyone else who'd ended up in the same place.

Instead he was forced to duck back as an enormous fist swung at his head. It appeared he was in rough company – a collection of brutes, no doubt part of the same gang that had appeared in the plaza. The man attacking him, who had hedgehog needles for hair and a mean look in his eyes, followed up with another blow. Midoriya dodged it, and was surprised by how easy it was. He leapt up, using Pressure Drop to boost his speed and struck his opponent full in the face. Dropping down, he swept the man's legs while he was off balance, and sent him crashing to the floor.

He had little time to celebrate his victory, as three more villains emerged from a half-destroyed building. He backed away from them cautiously, until he felt himself hit something – something moving. He risked a glance behind him, and caught a brief flash of bright pink, and a nervous face.

"Ashido!"

"Midoriya!"

Over her shoulder he could see three more villains approaching, ready to attack.

"Behind you!" he gasped.

"Behind _you!_" she replied.

He launched himself over her shoulders at precisely the same time she lunged down to hit one of the villains low. He struck one of them full in the face with a knee strike, and as the thug fell backwards he used Pressure Drop to boost off him and backwards into another villain with an elbow to the side of the head. As he landed, he felt himself grappled from behind. He fired off jets of air pressure at random in all directions, half in an effort to escape and half in a panicked desire to do something, anything to flee. It seemed to work, as the giant who had grabbed him let go, and received a blow to the jaw for his trouble.

Midoriya landed unsteadily, and by the time he had regained his footing Ashido had taken care of her trio of villains as well. She was panting with exertion, but seemed none the worse for wear. They nodded to each other in mutual respect, before looking around for any new ambushers. When none presented themselves, they walked back over to each other.

"Holy cow", said Midoriya. Ashido nodded, still too busy catching her breath to respond. "We gotta get out of here", he continued, "If we're getting attacked I bet the others are too."

They searched around the arena, and found that each direction looked more or less like the others. Everything was fire, everything was smoke and rubble. They didn't seem to be any closer to one side of the dome than any other, so they picked a direction and started walking. Fortunately, they came across a stretch of road that was more or less intact, and they were able to make good going between the shells of burned out buildings.

They stayed alert for another attack, but the mazelike nature of the training room seemed to be working against the invaders. Midoriya had almost calmed down when a sound came from the other side of a particularly large pile of rubble, and then another. A crashing and thumping, steady and rhythmic. He could draw only one conclusion.

"Ashido, I think there's more coming!"

"Oh, great." she groused with a flat look. Nonetheless she settled into a ready stance and prepared for another round.

The crashing intensified until a familiar (and extraordinarily large) hand reached through the gap and launched a section of wall off to one side. A truly massive form started pulling itself out into the road.

"Koda!", cheered Ashido, "Boy, am I glad to see you!"

Midoriya could only agree.

Their classmate hauled himself through the rubble and attempted to dust himself off, though given the state of him Midoriya considered it a futile effort.

"How are you holding up, Koda?" asked Midoriya.

In response, Koda made an OK sign.

Ashido side-hugged him with one arm. "Glad to hear it, buddy. C'mon, we're getting out of here."

They forged ahead, and they were making good time until a villain made of fire leapt from the flames to attack them. At any rate, they appeared to be made of fire, standing wreathed in bright red flames – under better circumstances, Midoriya would have loved nothing more than to ask the individual how their quirk worked. With a start, he realised that he could get some information on it after all. The brainwave came not a moment too quickly, as Ashido was ducking back before a flurry of punches. He reached out and took the attacker's quirk. Bereft of flames, it turned out their adversary was a plain-looking man in a tracksuit. He looked down, bewildered, until Koda struck him in the side of the head, and then he was out for the count. Midoriya returned the man's quirk after they had restrained him with a length of metal cabling liberated from a nearby building.

They had almost made it. There, still distant but at last visible, was the exit. The green emergency sign glowed above it like a light from heaven. Their path ahead was flat, which was an improvement on some of the rubble fields they had struggled through. However, the flat ground simply gave them a clear view of the raging inferno between them and the way out. A network of metal grates laced across the floor, and fire sprang up from them. Sometimes it came in fits and starts, and sometimes it burned consistently, but either way trying to pick their way across it would be dangerous at best.

Ashido clutched her hair in exasperation. "Wait, the fire's actually real? I thought it would be a hologram or something!"

"This is messed up", said Midoriya. "The flames are real, but they're part of a training system. If it's anything like other natural disaster training, there should always be a safe way out, and it should be systematically shutting off and coming back on."

"Huh", commented Ashido. "Could the villains have, like, hacked them? Or sabotaged it some other way, to jam the flames on?" She wiggled her fingers in the air, as if to mime typing on a keyboard.

"Yeah, I guess so. Good way of keeping people in here." He paused. "Or, come to think of it, it would be a good way of keeping most people in here."

"What do you mean?" asked Ashido. Next to her, Koda looked similarly confused.

"It's just...well, I've been wondering. Did they send us three, specifically to this part of USJ, or were they just scattering people at random?"

He gave the flames a gust of air, and let up once they had gone out. As soon as he did, they leapt back into life, just as menacing as they had been before. He tried again, and got the same result. He shook his head. "It's no good, they're getting fed from underground or something. We need to starve the fires of oxygen and fill up the works at the same time, then they should stay out. Say, Ashido – how watery can you make your acid?"

She seemed to realise what he had in mind. "Real watery. Like, lemon juice or something."

Midoriya pumped his fist in excitement, "Perfect! You're in charge of making us a path out of here, we'll keep anyone else off your back!"

"You can count on me!" she declared, as Koda gave a thumbs-up.

Ashido waved her hands out flat, palms down in front of her like the world's pinkest DJ, and washed the floor ahead of them with a pale-pink stream to create a route to the door. Midoriya and Koda backed along behind her, eyes peeled for any villains leaping from the fire. Midoriya didn't see any himself, but he did hear sounds of commotion from behind him. When he turned around, Koda was standing over a fallen figure with a clenched fist and an uncharacteristically stern look on his face.

As they pressed on, the scorched rubble became smooth, clean concrete. They pressed on past meeting rooms, a mess hall and a first aid room, all shockingly ordinary after their fiery ordeal. Eventually they reached a pair of heavy steel doors. They were locked shut, and Ashido was just pondering what it would take to melt through it when Koda stepped forward. He braced his back against the frame and pushed against it. At first Midoriya thought nothing was happening, but then he heard a creaking and groaning. It grew increasingly loud and unhealthy-sounding, until the door physically buckled and then popped out of its frame. Midoriya blinked the sudden light out of his eyes.

"Sunlight!", cheered Ashido, and she punched the air as Koda stood back up and rubbed his shoulder, "Or at least whatever they got around here."

They stood there at the entrance to the Conflagration Zone, and took a moment to enjoy the simple fact of being outside; or at least under the larger dome of USJ. They were relieved to find that USJ itself seemed to be in one piece. They set off down the path, and Midoriya was struck by the fact that had today gone as planned, their class would have all been taking the same walk together.

He was aware of the potential danger of encountering more villains. The largest concentration had been around the fountain, but of course they could always have split up. Fortunately, their first encounter was with more friends. Tokoyami in his long black cloak and Shiozaki in her white robe were in many ways the opposite of each other, but their faces told the same tale of determination.

"Oh hey, where did you guys end up?" asked Midoriya.

"We reappeared halfway up the mountain," Tokoyami explained as he brushed grit and dust from his cloak, "and we ran into some unpleasant company."

Shiozaki nodded. "Nothing we couldn't handle, thank Heaven."

Dark Shadow appeared over Tokoyami's shoulder, "Plus, it turns out they're both poetry dorks!", he crowed, "Ain't makin' friends grand?"

Midoriya struggled to restrain a chuckle and Ashido didn't even bother with that as Tokoyami buried his forehead in his hand and sighed "Must you?"

Koda patted Tokoyami's shoulder consolingly.

"Uh, in any case", Midoriya gamely pressed on, "We were in the Conflagration Zone. We had pretty much the same thing, a bunch of small-time goons trying to jump us. Whoever's in charge of this little operation, they seem to have brought a whole lot of low-tier minions along with them."

"Then let's go find the ringleader and beat his ass!" declared Ashido.

"Perhaps not", commented Shiozaki, "He – or they, or whoever is responsible for all this – is likely to be far beyond those we've faced so far. Our best hope is to escape, and inform the teachers. Let's see if these brutes are so brave when All Might is bearing down on them."

"That's a good idea too!" agreed Ashido cheerfully, "Either way, let's get moving and do something!"

"Well, either way we're gonna have to go through the central plaza", said Midoriya. "That's the quickest way to the entrance."

Tokoyami drove his fist into his hand. "Very well. Onwards!"

On their path down towards the plaza, they could occasionally catch glimpses of what was happening elsewhere in the USJ. For the most part this was too distant for them to really follow the events, but on one occasion they were able to surmise exactly what had happened.

"I think we can guess where Todoroki ended up", mused Tokoyami as Dark Shadow pointed off into the distance. Midoriya followed his outstretched talon and saw the lake of the Shipwreck Zone frozen over, the ship itself stuck fast. Three small figures were making their way across the ice, avoiding other forms frozen half-in and half-out of the artificial glacier.

"It's like a scene from the _Inferno_", said Shiozaki wonderingly. "I pray this is the closest I ever get to the real thing."

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Tokoyami.

"Yeah!", chirped Dark Shadow, "If you want an inferno it's back that way!" He jerked a claw over his shoulder.

Shiozaki deflated. "You haven't read Dante? You, of all people, haven't read Dante?"

Ashido waved her hands in exasperation. "Book-of-the-month club later, survival now!" Koda nodded emphatically.

Shiozaki bowed. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Further down the path, they were able to reunite with another wayward classmate, and one that Midoriya was particularly glad to see. Bakugo was walking along the road, alert but unworried, with a large shape slung over his shoulder. As they got closer, they could see that it was Kaminari.

"Is he alright?", came the worried question from more than one mouth.

Bakugo shrugged, and Kaminari made a vaguely cheerful noise. "We were in some stupid canyon when a bunch of two-bit assholes jumped us. I coulda taken care of all of 'em, but stungun here decided he wanted to be a big man and take 'em on all at once." His expression softened. "I mean, credit where it's due, he did do it, but he's been loopy ever since. Ain't that right?" He patted Kaminari on the back, and in response Kaminari gave a wobbly thumbs-up.

They came to a stretch of road that ran along the crest of a hill. From their new vantage point, they could see the great mob of villains in the centre. Aizawa was still fighting courageously, but even from that distance they could see that he was flagging.

Bakugo frowned. "The quickest way out is straight through them, but obviously I don't want to carry this guy around like a big stupid punching bag when there's fighting going on. Who wants to fight our way out, and who just wants to escape?"

Koda raised a sheepish hand, and put up two fingers.

Bakugo nodded. "OK, big fella. You take Stungun the long way round, get him to the front door so he can rest up."

"I'd like to go with you", said Shiozaki, "You may run into more trouble, and I'd hate to send you off alone."

Koda nodded and the two set off down the side-path. They moved as quickly as they could while remaining quiet, and soon they were lost to sight.

Midoriya looked around at the remaining students. "Can we assume that everyone else here wants to go help out down there?"

From the looks on their faces, he needn't have asked. Bakugo quickly took centre stage, looking at his assembled companions. "Midoriya, did you take anyone's quirk on your way over here?"

"No", he replied. "Well, one, but I gave it back after we neutralised him."

"Why?" asked Bakugo, sounding exasperated, "We coulda' used it!"

"Hey, we tied him up first. And besides, he turned himself into some kind of...I don't know, a human torch or something. I don't think it would have been that useful."

Bakugo nodded. "OK. Pinky, I know you can make yourself slippery, but Blackbird, what's your deal?"

"OK first of all", interrupted Ashido before Tokoyami could speak, "Pinky is a lame name." She pointed in Bakugo's face, for emphasis.

Bakugo shrugged. "I say what I see."

She ticked off a second finger on her hand. "Second of all, I don't make myself slippery. That sounds, like, super gross."

"Then what do you do?"

She posed proudly. "I'll have you know, I can make acid!"

"And for my part", interjected Tokoyami, "Behold." Dark Shadow unfurled behind him and made a menacing gesture with its claws.

Bakugo grinned. "OK, this is way better than I thought. I figured you could just, like, talk to animals or something."

"That would be Koda", sniffed Tokoyami.

Bakugo tilted his head to one side. "Who?"

"Big guy", supplied Midoriya.

"Ooooh", breathed Bakugo. "Well, that's still kinda cool."

"You're not great with names and faces, are you?" asked Ashido.

"Can it, Pinky!"

Their quirks established, they crept towards the central plaza. Midoriya's heart pounded in his chest as the wayward heroes approached the melee, certain that each tiny noise they made would be the one to bring the villains' attention crashing down on them. To his relief, they were able to make it to a mostly-intact length of low wall and peek over it to observe the carnage.

Aizawa was still holding his own, though even to their untrained eyes he was showing signs of flagging. Even as they watched he dragged one attacker into the path of another, but compared to his earlier graceful trail of carnage, this was a workmanlike affair.

Though the overwhelming majority of the villains were on the offensive, two of them were hanging back. They were the centre, perfectly still even as chaos raged around them. The two villains couldn't have been much more different. One was slender, pale and alert, his eyes darting this way and that behind the disembodied hand over his face. His counterpart was enormous, perhaps the biggest man Midoriya had ever seen. He was larger even than All Might or Endeavor, and he stood perfectly calm. He didn't even seem to be paying any mind to the carnage that surrounded him.

The black cloud appeared once more, its yellow eyes glowing and scowling.

The villain with the hands turned to face it. "Kurogiri," he asked, "what's the situation with the children?"

The black cloud appeared somehow regretful. "One of the students was able to get out. She must have some kind of technology quirk, the others were telling her to create a radio."

Bakugo grinned. "_Score!_" he hissed triumphantly. He flexed his fingers, preparing to strike.

"Guess that settles it", agreed Midoriya. "Man, good thing Yaoyorozu was here."

Before they could say any more, the pale villain leapt forward. He moved gracelessly but with great speed, lunging at Aizawa with his open hands outstretched. Their teacher lunged back, but it seemed that attrition had finally gotten the better of him. The villain was able to close the gap and get to grips with him. Aizawa made a wordless noise of pain, and Midoriya could see his clothes and scarf flaking away from him like dust in the wind. Beneath the clothes, beneath the villain's white hands, there was ugly red. Aizawa was being physically eaten away by the villain's touch.

Just as it seemed their teacher was done for, there came the cry of a familiar voice, "Get away from him, you punk!" Sure enough, Bakugo was leaping into action, his palms alight with explosive force. The remaining villains flinched at the unexpected new combatant, and Bakugo took full advantage of their hesitation to carve his way through the mob. While Aizawa had once done this with a strange kind of grace, Bakugo made himself a human bulldozer and barrelled along on a path of his own making.

Behind him, the rest followed, stirred to action by his reckless charge. The melee was chaotic, far to quick and frantic for Midoriya to be able to take any of his enemies' quirks, so he made do with what he had. Ashido was fighting by his side, and behind them Tokoyami directed Dark Shadow as a rearguard.

But it wasn't enough. Bakugo was amazing, in many ways the best of their class, but he was still fundamentally trying to punch above his weight. Aizawa was able to use the distraction to disengage from the hand villain, but not to turn the momentum of the fight in his favour. This was all too true when the giant finally made his first move. With absolute silence, and an agility that seemed hard to credit to someone of his size, the giant raced through the throng and struck Aizawa in the chest, just once. That single strike sent Aizawa flying backwards, and he landed in an ugly rolling heap. It took long seconds, too long, for him to stand back up. Ashido gasped and ran to his side. Midoriya wished he could join her, but he didn't want to take his eyes off the villains for even a second.

"That's enough for now, Nomu", said the pale villain as he walked around its massive bulk, "We don't want you getting tarpitted before the stage hazard shows up, now do we? Now", he sneered from behind his hand, "let's deal with you brats." He flexed his fingers and made to move towards them. Midoriya, Bakugo and Tokoyami readied themselves for a fight, and Ashido stood back up behind them. If this creep wanted to lay a finger on Mr Aizawa, he was going to have to go through them to do it.

Then a great sound rang out from the entrance. The door crashed open and from the white light of the outside world, a powerful figure emerged. He was enormous, he was undeniable, he was the world's symbol of peace and justice – and he was scowling.

"It's alright now", he declared to the students and to the world, "I am here."

He _moved_ faster than the eye could follow, seemingly faster than the speed of light. Villains were struck aside as if by an invisible force. For brief, tantalising flashes he was visible, pulling students out of harm's way and laying out scores of villains effortlessly. Midoriya had seen All Might in action in countless videos, but nothing compared to the real thing. In videos, he was great. In person, he was an inspiration.

Then he was before them. He was breathing just a little harder than usual, as if he had been out for a jog. After knocking out dozens of villains, each with a single blow, he wasn't even sweating in his pinstripe suit. With All Might standing between them and the villains, Midoriya felt a certainty deep in his heart that he was safe.

"Nomu!" shrieked the pale villain, "Kill him!"

The hulk behind him lunged forward with an animal frenzy, howling with the ugliest voice Midoriya had ever heard.

"Your bodyguard, eh?" asked All Might casually as he locked grips with his assailant. "Not exactly what I'd call a looker!" The brute snapped at him and he leaned back to avoid rending teeth and stinking spittle. "Don't worry, it's only skin-deep", he grinned, keeping up the conversation even as his opponent started to push him back. All Might seemed to realise that the test of strength wasn't going to work, and he kicked against Nomu's chest to break away.

It became a striking match, as the two of them traded blows faster than any observer could follow. The air around them became a blur of violent motion. It was all Midoriya, or anyone else could do to look on in awe.

The villain with the hands giggled as he looked on. "Nomu here is a bio-engineered masterpiece, a living weapon! He has a catalogue of quirks hand-picked to counter you! Meet your match, All Might!"

Midoriya reached out with his true quirk and looked through the big brute's mind. If he could grab just one or two quirks, he might upset that perfect balance and tilt the fight back in All Might's favour. He hadn't known what to expect from a mind with more than one quirk, but the reality of it was unbearable. Quirks piled upon each other, clawing at him and driving him back. He tried his best to press on, but it was like reaching his hand into a nest of swarming, stinging insects. Everything was clawing at him, scratching at him, burning and stinging all at once. He tried to pick out one quirk from another, to just grab something important and get out, but it was impossible when all of them crowded him at once. "Oh!" He staggered back, clutching his head.

"What's wrong?" asked Kirishima.

"He's got too many quirks!" he gasped.

"You're one to talk", muttered Bakugo.

"No, he's got too many at once! They were – jammed into him or something, it's _horrible_!"

Nomu continued to match All Might blow for blow. If he had even noticed Midoriya's attempt to take one of his quirks, he gave no sign.

"You'll never put a scratch on him, you meathead!" cackled the ringleader, "His shock absorption makes him invincible!"

Midoriya stole a sideways glance at Bakugo. "I'm gonna take it. That shock absorption he mentioned."

"Can you do it?" asked Tokoyami quietly.

He gulped. "I-now I know what to look for. I think." Even to his own ears, he didn't sound terribly convincing.

"You can either do it or you can't!" snapped Bakugo, "So do it!"

"Right." He reached out again, and though he knew what to expect it was still a deeply unpleasant experience. After reaching through this creature – surely he was no longer strictly human – Midoriya found his target and snatched it. "I've got it!"

He immediately realised how much of a bad idea it had been to speak as he collapsed, vomiting. The quirk felt fundamentally _wrong_. It was clawing at him, forcing him to activate it against his own will. He felt like he had taken too many quirks at once, or like he had taken a quirk he somehow wasn't supposed to. Never had any quirk he had taken affected him like this.

He struggled not to pass out, even as he heard All Might regain the initiative and send the hulking intruder flying. One of the other villains complained that All Might was "supposed to be weaker than this", before he and the walking cloud disappeared in a swirl of darkness. The invasion was over. He looked up through the agonised tears in his eyes to see All Might still standing tall, smiling paternally down at the assembled students.

"It's alright", said Bakugo, sounding oddly calm "If it hurts that much you can turn it off. They're gone."

Midoriya thought that sounded like a wonderful idea. He deactivated the bizarre quirk, and then for good measure passed out.

...

_Meanwhile, in a bar in Kamino Ward_

Shigaraki tumbled out of Kurogiri's warp gate into the darkened bar. The PC in the corner was ready and waiting for his report. He knelt before it hurriedly and held up a hand. "Master." He took a deep breath, "Good-news-bad-news situation."

His master sighed. "Give me the bad news first."

He scowled behind the familiar weight of his father's hand. "All Might wasn't weakened. Or at least...not enough."

"Hmm...so the reports of his demise were exaggerated."

"Exactly! That damned mole isn't as close to him as we thought. That's my guess, anyway."

On the other end of the screen, his master pondered this silently. "Possible", he said eventually, "And the good news?"

His face creaked into a grin. "There's this one student – oh, Master, you're gonna want to meet him. He's like a create-a-character, like he was designed just for us. His name is Midoriya."

This chapter challenged me a great deal. Even though I've made the scenario different – kids going to different areas, All Might being stronger due to retaining One for All, etc – it still feels like so much of it is just a rehash of canon. I HATE rehashing canon, and I have no idea how so many fanfic authors do it without losing the will to carry on.

But here it is, for you to enjoy! Up next is, of course, the sports festival, and that (or at least the third round, which let's be honest is what we're here for) is so much easier to make radically different. I already have a shock upset for round one that I don't think anyone will see coming.

The category of Q-Quirk is my own invention, and isn't even headcanon so much as playing with classifications a little.

Lastly, I acknowledge that some people interpret Thirteen as agender, but the official source book says she's a woman so gogo women in space.


	6. The Eve of the War

_The Eve of the War_

_The Next Day_

Midoriya was able to track Mr Aizawa down without much difficulty; the teachers he asked seemed to assume he was on Class vice-Rep business. Aizawa had, of course, had to visit Recovery Girl after the wounds he had taken at USJ, but he seemed content to continue work in his bandages. To hear him tell it, as long as he didn't do any heavy lifting his ribs weren't even particularly sore. Midoriya wasn't certain how much of that was true and how much was just Aizawa being a workaholic, but he was happy to see his teacher up and about anyway.

His teacher was, naturally, in his bright yellow sleeping bag. Midoriya nudged him awake and told him "I'm gonna do something that looks really stupid in Home Room today, but I want you to know that I've thought it through beforehand."

"Well, what is it?" groused Aizawa.

"Don't worry", he replied, "you'll know when you see it."

"...right." Grumbled Aizawa as he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sure enough, once 1-A had all arrived but before classes had started for the day, Midoriya strode up to Bakugo and said "Quick, punch me in the face!"

Without any hesitation, Bakugo socked him square in the jaw. Midoriya collapsed in a heap, his head making an ugly sound as it hit the floor.

"You, uh...you doin' OK there, dude?" asked Kirishima vaguely.

Midoriya raised an arm and gave the class a thumbs-up. He picked himself back up, looking none the worse for wear. "Remember that big guy from the attack?", he asked the concerned-looking students, "I've still got his shock absorption".

"Huh", replied the class.

"So could you like, get stabbed and it wouldn't hurt you?" asked Ashido eagerly.

"I'm not sure", he replied, "It works better on blunt impacts than cuts or anything else, and I don't really want to risk it."

"Fair", she allowed.

"You know, it's kinda funny", he continued, "It hurt to activate it the first couple of times. I've never had a quirk that hurt to use before. I guess I worked out the kinks, though, because it feels normal now."

Bakugo shrugged. "You always used to take them from volunteers, right? But that big guy was fighting. Maybe that's the difference."

"Hey, yeah!" agreed Midoriya, "Emotions can have an effect on quirks, so that might linger after the fact."

"Hold on", objected Jirou, "You took mine when we were fighting."

"Well…", pondered Midoriya, "Were we really fighting? I mean, it was just training. Like, subconsciously you didn't want to hurt me, but I bet that Nomu guy would have really messed me up."

…

Yaoyorozu had taken advantage of Aizawa's lack of interest in the early morning Home Room and had called the class together for a Sports Festival planning session. "Of course, we may end up competing against each other, but we're hardly the only class in our year", she began, "So firstly, what do we know about class B?"

Shoda raised a hand. "In terms of the class make-up, they have six girls and fourteen boys, the same as us."

"Man", pondered Mineta, "The Hero course is kind of a sausage fest once you think about it."

Yaoyorozu nodded. "That's to be expected, unfortunately. And it's only going to get worse. Statistically speaking, more boys than girls enter Heroics courses, more girls than boys drop out, and then more women than men leave the field in their first two or three years of going pro. The numbers only start to even out if you focus on the very top of the rankings, and even then it's never 50/50."

"Hold on", began Kaminari, "Is it really that bad?"

She nodded. "I bet you could name 10 great women pros, right?"

"Sure!" agreed Kaminari cheerfully. "Mirko, Ryukyu, 3 of the Wild Pussycats..."

"The thing is, if I asked anyone else they would give me much the same list. But if I ask you to name 10 great men you'd give me one list, Bakugo would give me another, Tsuyu's might be completely different. We'd probably all say All Might and Endeavor, of course, but other than them there are so many more men as pros than women. The sample size is completely different."

"That sucks!" declared Kaminari loudly.

The door paused in place for a second before closing. Curious, Pony stood and slid it open and closed a few times. It seemed to have gone back to normal, and she shrugged and sat back down.

Yaoyorozu clapped her hands together. "I know we're all working on our own individual training, and I know we're all doing everything we can. But I'd like to take a moment to ask if any of us have any plans for group training. We might get a lot more done in groups, or even in pairs. To coin a phrase, we can each contribute based on our abilities, to each of us based on what we need."

Bakugo smirked. "Sure thing, Chairman Yao."

Midoriya wasn't sure what he meant by that but it made Yaoyorozu giggle demurely.

"I figure we could train together", suggested Mineta. The rest of the class gave him dubious looks, and he pressed on, "No, I'm serious. I could throw my balls, and you could try and make a shield or armour or whatever quickly enough to block them."

Yaoyorozu ran a hand under her chin. "That's...actually not a bad idea. We don't know what the other students might have planned, so training against ranged attacks would be prudent. Ashido, I believe you were also working on a defensive technique. Would you like to join us?"

From the look on Mineta's face, Midoriya guessed his motives weren't entirely on the level. However, Mineta's day was darkened when Bakugo loudly volunteered to join and blast his balls straight to the next life.

"It'll be just like a clay pigeon shoot!" beamed Yaoyorozu, "What fun!"

Jirou's earphone jacks waved in the air. "Hold on, I can hear something. Almost like a scratching noise, coming from the cupboard."

Shoji extended a few extra ears. "I don't hear anything."

"No, it's stopped now."

"You don't suppose we have mice?"

Midoriya leaned forward. "Koda, could you check it out?"

Koda stood and headed to the back of the room. He opened the cupboard door, and asked quietly who was there. After a few moments he turned back to the class and shrugged. The planning session continued without incident, until one of the students from class 1-B stopped by to borrow some supplies from the cupboard at the back. Midoriya struggled to remember his name – the blonde one, who was so often smiling.

…

Yaoyorozu had decided that if they were going to be class representatives, they had better represent their class somehow. With the upcoming sports festival, it seemed natural for them to meet with the reps from class 1-B and at least get to know each other. Midoriya was happy to agree, and so the two of them sat in a free classroom after school one pleasant afternoon and waited for their counterparts to arrive.

First was the tall guy from the entrance exam, who introduced himself as Iida Tenya. He made every little movement with speed, but also with a bizarre stiffness that made him resemble a runaway robot more than a boy their own age. He was joined by vice-rep Kendo Itsuka, a pleasant girl who wore her hair in a distinctive side-ponytail.

They found that it was so early into the year that they didn't really have that much to discuss. However, it was a nice enough way to spend their time; and they all agreed that they should meet up like this on occasion, in case something did come up.

…

When classes were over for the day and Aizawa had curled up in the corner for an afternoon nap, the first few students to attempt to leave found their way blocked by a sudden assembly of other students. The crowd outside their door was vast, and Midoriya couldn't recognise more than a handful of them. He knew some of the 1-B students when he saw them, though neither of the reps were visible. Other than that, it was a stark reminder of just how many more students there were at UA outside the much-vaunted Heroics course.

Bakugo scoffed. "You all came to scope out the competition, huh?" He spread his arms and smirked. "Better get a good look while you can. Why not take pictures, too?"

A tall, slender boy with wild purple hair made his way to the front of the crowd. "How generous of you" he remarked ironically. "I guess 1-A really does love the spotlight after all."

"You're the ones who came crowding around our door", Bakugo shot back. "Looking for targets, right? Like scavengers trying to pick out the weakest of the herd."

The slender boy nodded even as the wider crowd bristled at being called scavengers. "I think you're mixing up your animal kingdoms, but you have the right idea. You can all consider this a declaration of war. You might be riding high for now, but what goes up must come down."

_A war?_ Pondered Midoriya, _Just how seriously is everyone taking this?_

Bakugo scoffed. "If that's how you want it, you better come at us swinging. I'll beat your ass, you skinny punk."

Two more weeks passed, and for everyone outside UA it was a beautiful autumn. The sun shone, the birds sang, the leaves changed their colours and everywhere the world was beautiful. For those in UA, and especially those in Class 1-A, those two weeks were full to the brim with training and exercise; both administered by their teachers and on their own time.

Midoriya busied himself in two primary ways. Firstly, there was conventional physical exercise. In a world of quirks it was never everything, but even so it never hurt to run faster, jump farther or punch harder than the competition. He'd kept on top of his workout regimen ever since meeting All Might the previous year (and part of him couldn't believe it had been so long already) and he was able to add just a little more to his routine to make sure he was in top shape come the day of the festival. But that was only half of the question, and he filled the rest of his time borrowing Quirks from anyone who would lend them. A Quirk could do funny things to the body, and even going for a 10 minute walk could help him get acclimatised to having 4 arms, or legs like a horse. With so many other students competing in the Sports Festival, Midoriya reasoned that he had no idea what to expect; this being the case he tried his best to expect everything.

Eventually the day of the festival arrived, as it inevitably must. As the students prepared for their chance in the spotlight, the teaching staff introduced the event as the crowds cheered. "Welcome, everyone, to sunny Musutafu! Welcome, everyone, to the hottest sports entertainment event of the year! Welcome, everyone, to the UA Sports Festival!" screamed Present Mic in a throat-burning stormer, "I will be your host, and with me are my good friends and colleagues Eraserhead and Vlad King! I had my reservations about a three-man booth, but Eraserhead insisted on it, for balance."

Vlad King huffed. "I think it's telling that our version of balance is three men rapidly approaching middle age."

Aizawa made a vague noise of agreement, while Present Mic squawked indignantly.

Down on the field, Midnight cracked her flogger over her head. "Speak for yourself, boys!" she crowed, "I'm down here with our hot young talents, the cream of the crop! As is tradition, our top-scoring student from the entry exam will give a speech before the festivities begin. Bakugo Katsuki – if you would be so kind?"

Bakugo strode up to the platform with an easy confidence. He took hold of the microphone and looked out into the assembled students. "I came here to win", he said, "so you'd all better give it everything you've got. I won't hold back, and neither should you. Plus Ultra."

Midoriya had expected something along those lines, or perhaps something even more succinct if his friend had been in a bad mood.

Midnight brandished her flogger at the big screen. "Alright, boys and girls! Get ready for the first of our three events today: An obstacle course! Four kilometres around the stadium, and anything short of deliberately forcing your opponents off the track is A-OK!" She grinned a predatory grin. "So, think you have what it takes?"

Midoriya rolled his shoulders and bounced on his toes. He'd expected something along these lines for the first event, and this in particular was just ideal. There were a hundred ways he could use Pressure Drop to his advantage, and that was assuming he couldn't borrow any other useful quirks.

The light turned green. The buzzer sounded. Pandemonium broke out.

Midoriya had always known that he wasn't the biggest guy in the world. What he did have, however, was a compact kind of power. As the entrance narrowed to a corridor and the crowd of students were all mashed together, he was able to use this to his advantage as he squeezed through gaps and avoided the collected knees, elbows, fists and feet that sprung from the crowd almost as if it were a living, many-tentacled creature.

The course opened up again, to Midoriya's relief. Unfortunately, it seemed that the open track just gave everyone with an emitter quirk the chance to throw a little firepower around. Todoroki in particular was making the course difficult for everyone behind him (which was practically everyone in general) but the rest of the racers were throwing their fair share of fireballs and lightning.

Up ahead, Midoriya spotted Mineta clinging to Yaoyorozu's back. It certainly didn't look like she was very happy with the situation, so Midoriya reached out with Give and Take to grab Mineta's Pop-Off. Mineta did indeed pop off his erstwhile ride, and Midoriya was able to use his newly acquired sticky balls (which in his case looked more like olives than grapes) to give himself an easier time getting across Todoroki's ice field. Yaoyorozu gave him an appreciative nod when she caught up with him on a pair of ice-skates, and by the time the ground had become more solid Midoriya was able to return Pop-Off to its rightful owner.

After all, it was hardly likely to be useful against a crowd of Zero-Point Robots. He was forced to stand amazed as Todoroki reduced them to so much scrap metal. Luckily, there was enough clear space before them for him to get a good run up and then leap ahead, using Pressure Drop to buoy himself up and over. It was the first time he'd ever tried to jump over something quite so big, and he found that the sensation of air pressure driving him onwards was really quite uncomfortable when he kept it up for too long. Still, he supposed a little discomfort was a small price to pay for victory.

Up ahead, a series of plateaux stood like a chain of islands in a black sea. They were joined by cables, and some of the faster students had already started traversing them by many and various means. One, too far off in the distance for Midoriya to easily identify them, seemed to be the world's fastest tightrope walker. A girl with pink dreadlocks had apparently decided that the existing cables were too mainstream, and was using a grappling hook gun to swing her way to victory. The purple guy who'd challenged them all was being flung from plateau to plateau by a bucket chain of other students. How he'd convinced them to help out, Midoriya wasn't sure.

Midoriya himself had a simple plan – to do exactly what he had done with the robots. He took a few steps back to make sure he would have space, and then made a Pressure Drop assisted running jump. His aim was true, and he landed on one of the rocky platforms with only a minimal amount of stumbling and a brief instant of terror that he would fall off the other side. He grinned and lined himself up for his next jump. _Cables?,_ he thought, _Who needs 'em?_

He made short work of the rest of the chasm, and found himself on more solid ground once he had reached the other side. He ran along at a steady, sustainable pace, and was gratified to find he was passing some others who had been sprinting earlier. There was never a true crowd as there had been at the start of the race, but it definitely got more congested as he approached the last obstacle: a minefield. Midoriya supposed it had to be said that UA never did anything by halves. The mines themselves were more or less visible, and it appeared that they were buried very close to the surface. As he made his careful way forward (shock absorption active, naturally), he saw mines get set off even by students who had barely even brushed them. With that in mind, he had a plan.

He switched to Pressure Drop and brought a current of air directly down on the ground in a straight line leading out about 30 metres in front of him. Sure enough, a number of mines were set off, giving him a clear path to dash along. As he approached the end he did it again, and again, until he was able to make his way to the home straight and resume running in earnest. The extra time he'd taken had ensured he wasn't among the first, but he ended up with a very respectable 7th place.

Todoroki had taken 1st place, with Bakugo close behind in 2nd. The rest of the finishers came in after him, sometimes in a stream and sometimes in a trickle, until the space around Midnight's stage was starting to fill up. She brandished her flogger at the screen behind her and declared, "The next event will be...a Cavalry Battle!"

"OK", thought Midoriya confidently, "I have a plan."

_Fifteen Minutes Later_

Midoriya slumped to the ground, panting for breath. "Holy cow", he gasped out, "Great job, Shiozaki, I don't know what we would have done without you!"

Uraraka punched the air. "Yeah! You were super cool, coming in with the last-minute save like that!"

Their teammate nodded, the vital headbands she had snatched at the last moment still stuck on her vines. "I am glad to have helped", she said, "Thank you both for your praise."

Kaminari, the fourth member of their team, shrugged with a smile. "Nobody can say you don't deserve it." He paused. "Say, uh, you ever think of wearing flowers in your hair? I bet it'd look really nice."

Meanwhile, Bakugo was curious. His own team had of course put on a great performance, and he'd expected nothing less of his old friend Midoriya. Todoroki had done well, which was also to be expected. But then there was the mystery team that had come up from behind and ended up in the top 4.

He thought he saw one of them – the skinny asshole with the smug face and messy purple hair. He seemed to have been the ringleader of the whole thing, and he wasn't even in the Heroics course. What was up with that?

Bakugo made his way over to find out more – he did _not_ stomp, Midoriya could kiss his ass – when he was interrupted with a hand on his shoulder.

"Watch out!"

It was what's-his-name, the tail guy. Ojiro? Bakugo thought it was probably Ojiro.

"His quirk", continued his mystery classmate, "it's-"

"Shut your trap!" he barked "Since when are you my personal trainer?"

Ojiro backed off, his hands raised. "Easy, easy. I'm just trying to help you out."

"Forget that. I'll beat him one on one, fair and square!" He turned to his opponent. "You got that, ya twiglet?"

The purple guy grinned, and it was only half-mocking. "Good luck", he said quietly before heading off to prepare.

Meanwhile, Midoriya had been cornered by Todoroki and the two had ended up in a quiet hallway somewhere in the bowels of the arena. "So, uh, Todoroki", he asked, "how can I help you?"

The taller boy sighed. "Midoriya...can you take half of a quirk?"

He shook his head. "I wish I could, it'd make helping people a lot easier. Why do you ask?"

So Todoroki told him. With his striking good looks and stoic, sombre demeanour, Todoroki had resembled a hero from a shoujo manga. Now Midoriya found that he had the horrific backstory to go with it. He hadn't thought that the things Todoroki described could happen in real life; he had been a lot happier before he learned the truth.

When Todoroki was done, Midoriya looked up at him. "Todoroki…I wish I could take your fire. I wish everyone could have a quirk with no downsides. But that quirk is yours, both halves of it, and I can't take one without the other."

"I see. I'm sorry for taking your time."

"Don't be", he replied, "Obviously I can't really help but there have to be people who can. Talk to Mr Aizawa, or Hound Dog, or – or for heaven's sake, someone."

"I can't. This is my life, these are my problems."

"But they're not! Your entire family is already caught up in all this. You're not stranded on a desert island; everyone's life is connected to other lives."

"My family…" murmured Todoroki thoughtfully. "Look. I'm not going to shout this from the rooftops. But I'll at least think about talking to more people about it."

"Thank you. And, uh…good luck in the tournament."

Todoroki nodded, and Midoriya understood that it was the closest he was going to get to a response. He left awkwardly, his head swimming with all he had learned.

He was able to grab a meal, though he couldn't find any of his friends in the crowd. Just as he was done, he heard another classmate coming up to him in a hurry.

"Midoriya, bro!" cried Kirishima, "You done eating?"

"Sure, I guess." Today seemed to be a day for interruptions.

Kirishima nodded. "Great! Listen, there's someone in Class B you gotta meet."

Well that didn't sound so bad. He let Kirishima drag him along to the assembled 1-B students; Iida seemed to be busy haranguing them with the importance of sportsmanlike conduct. He trailed off as the pair approached, though Kendo perked up.

"_This_ is who you meant?" she asked with a smile, "If you'd said his name, I could have told you that we'd already met."

"Uh, hi again." offered Midoriya.

"Hey, Midoriya. So you're the 'Alternate Universe Monoma, huh?"

Midoriya quirked an eyebrow in confusion. "That depends. Who's Monoma?"

The blonde boy from earlier made a small, grand gesture. "Charmed, I'm sure."

"Yeah, hi. Look, can someone please tell me what I'm doing here?"

Kirishima took a breath, but Monoma stepped in. "Allow me. Midoriya, feast your eyes...on Hagakure!" He gestured to a chair at the table. Sat there was a UA gym uniform, seemingly without anyone _in_ it.

"Hi!" said the empty uniform. "I don't know why you're here either."

Midoriya gulped. "Are you...always invisible?"

"Yep!" she replied.

"That's so cool!", he beamed.

She shrugged. "Sure, I guess. Anyway, what's going on here?"

Midoriya gave a brief explanation of his quirk. By the time he was done, Hagakure was bouncing excitedly in her seat.

"I'm gonna be visible! I'm gonna be visible!", she crowed.

The rest of class 1-B were grinning. Kendo pulled out her phone to take a picture, and the rest shortly followed suit. Just as Midoriya was getting ready to borrow her quirk, she clutched her hands over her head. At any rate, she raised her sleeves and ducked so that Midoriya guessed that was what she was doing. "Wait!", she cried, "Not yet!"

He blinked. "How come?"

She slumped in her seat. "My hair's a mess. And, now I think of it, blue isn't really my colour."

Midoriya looked at the rest of the group; they seemed just as nonplussed as him. "Uh...hit me up when it's a better day, I guess?"

She agreed, and he made his way towards the seating area. He was looking forward to watching the matches, almost as much as he was to taking part himself. A few other students had made it before him, and the remaining seats filled up around him as they all eagerly awaited the first round.

"It's time for the opening match!" cried Present Mic over the speakers. "Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for...Bakugo Katsuki vs Shinso Hitoshi!"

….

_End notes:_

_Eh...ain't I a stinker?_

_The reader will note that I have omitted the cavalry battle section of the sports festival almost entirely. This is for the simple reason that I really could not think of anything interesting to do with it. As implied by the dialogue Ibara filled the Tokoyami role, and Kaminari was in there to fill the vacant spot left by Hatsume Mei – who, in the absence of the 10,000,000 point headband frankly couldn't care less about Midoriya._


	7. The Greatest Show on Earth

_The Greatest Show on Earth_

They bowed to each other, though each made sure to dip_ just_ low enough to technically count as cracked her whip to mark the start of the match, and for a brief moment Bakugo regretted not allowing the tail guy to tell him Shinso's Quirk. He had a sudden dread of getting fixed in place with freezing super-breath, or blasted with heat vision. He put that behind him and decided to do what he always did in an uncertain situation: Seize the initiative.

He ignited his palms and leapt forward in a sudden attack. The boy opposite him didn't move until it was almost too late to dodge.

Shinso leapt to the side clumsily, avoiding the attack more by luck than judgement. "Are you even trying? Come on, man!" he yelled.

Bakugo whipped around on the spot to face his opponent. "You shut your-" he began, and then fell silent. He stood perfectly still in the middle of the arena as his arms fell to his side. Internally he raged, and as he failed to regain control his rage was increasingly tinged with panic. Could this really be how his tournament ended? Hypnotised by some asshole before he even got a single hit in?

Shinso smirked. "Blast yourself in the face", he commanded.

Bakugo raised his arm slowly, robotically, and pointed his palm towards his head. He let off a blast with enough force to send him stumbling backwards and crashing to the ground. His eyes snapped open, and as if waking from a bad dream he realised he was once again able to control his own body. He picked himself back up. He held back, wary of having his control suddenly stripped away again. When this failed to happen, Bakugo snarled a wordless sound of anger and lunged at Shinso.

He was relieved to find that he was able to press the attack without further interference, and he swiped viciously at his opponent, palms alight. Shinso ducked and dodged more than he blocked, seemingly waiting for another opening.

"Careful now", taunted Shinso as he hopped back away from a strike that would have knocked him cold.

"What the fuck was that?" Bakugo snapped.

Once again the fog descended in an instant, and Bakugo was forced into the passenger seat of his own mind. Unfortunately for Shinso, however, Bakugo's momentum carried him forward even as his body stilled. The result was that he fell flat on his face, and the impact shocked him back out of Shinso's control. He picked himself up off the floor and rubbed the dust from his face. "So that's how it works, huh?" he muttered, "When I talk to him? Easy way around that." Bakugo pulled his shirt off and rolled it up tight. That done, he bit down on it and tied the two ends together behind his head in a loose knot. He looked Shinso directly in the eye and flipped him off smugly.

"Huh. Didn't see that coming", mused Shinso.

"Now this is bizarre!" cried Present Mic.

"It's not the weirdest gag I've ever seen", announced Midnight. Bakugo and Shinso shared a brief mutual moment of wondering if that comment had been strictly necessary.

Bakugo rushed Shinso once more, and though he refrained from using his quirk he quickly overpowered his opponent. Shinso was forced onto the defensive as Bakugo's blows overwhelmed him, and before long a solid hit to the chest launched him into the air and out of the arena. He landed in a graceless, crumpled heap.

Midnight called out "Bakugo wins!", but the sound was overpowered in his ears by the bitterness in Shinso's sigh.

As Shinso left the field, Bakugo pulled his makeshift gag out of his mouth and flung it to one side. He stomped over to Midnight and held out one hand. "Lemme borrow your mic a second." She gave him a nonplussed look. "It's important, alright?"

Mic headset in hand, he addressed his opponent. "Hey. Hey, I'm talkin' to you! I got a buddy in my class, back in middle school kids used to say he had a scary quirk. The kids who said that were a bunch of brainless cowards who didn't know a decent quirk when they saw one!" Shinso had stopped in his tracks, staring back at Bakugo. "You wanna know the reason you lost? It's not because of quirks. It's because as soon as I figured out a way around your mind control, you fell apart! You had no plan B, you didn't come up with anything, you just folded! You wanna get into the hero course? Next time, come at me with something better than that weak shit!"

"Bakugo with some...unique words of wisdom for Shinso there", commented Present Mic.

"He's not wrong", observed Aizawa dryly. "Shinso has a powerful quirk, a sharp mind and a lot of potential. He'd have even more if he could throw a punch."

Shinso bowed to his opponent, and this time there was no irony in it.

...

Ashido tried not to let her nerves overcome her as she stood across the arena from Todoroki. She knew he was good, and she knew everyone else knew he was good as well. In fact, she wouldn't have been surprised to learn that everyone expected him to win. But she was determined not to let a silly little thing like that get her down. After all, wasn't there some old movie line about how the only way to lose is not to play? Something like that.

As soon as the match began, a frozen tidal wave surged towards her and stuck her in place – along with half the arena.

Midnight brandished her flogger and cried "Ashido is immobilised, and cannot continue!"

"Uh, excuse you!" shot back Ashido as she raised one arm from the glacier in a shower of ice shards and watery acid, "I'll tell you when I'm done, capisce?"

"My apologies. The match continues!"

By then Ashido had freed herself enough to leap from the glacier and stand tall atop it, hands on hips. "I'm unstoppable!" she declared loudly, albeit with her uniform in a state of disrepair. The sleeves and belly were gone from her shirt and most of the legs from her trousers, leaving her with a rather daring outfit of a crop top and short-shorts.

"Ashido melts her way out! Talk about a high-risk manoeuvre!" crowed Present Mic as Todoroki sent another massive wave of ice towards her. This time Ashido was better prepared to dodge and leapt away to one side.

Todoroki must have realised that his original tactic was no longer viable. He switched from his usual overpowering glaciers to smaller, faster bursts of ice that shot along the ground towards Ashido's feet. Unfortunately for him, Ashido seemed to have found the rhythm of the fight. She advanced towards him, working her way around and over his ice blasts with her customary agility and flair.

Eventually, she made her way into combat range. She ducked underneath his hasty guard and landed a solid punch into his gut. She pressed the attack, now firmly holding the momentum. Todoroki seemed as stunned as the audience, struggling to back away enough to clear space for his own attacks. However, he ran out of space before Ashido ran out of energy. He looked around confused as Ashido stopped her rushdown, only to find that he had put a foot outside the arena.

"Todoroki is out of bounds!" shouted Midnight as the audience erupted into surprised cheers, "Ashido will advance!"

Ashido reached out to him with a hand and a warm smile. Todoroki, for his part, snapped out a "Shit!" turned on his heel and stormed out of the arena.

Ashido scratched the back of her head awkwardly. "Aheh. Well, I guess he'll get over it."

Meanwhile, the commentary team were providing their own opinions. "Ashido wins her first match in a great display of CQC! Shame about the uniform, though."

"Ashido", said Mr Aizawa bluntly, "Normally I wouldn't be concerned with appearances, but there are limits. And public decency laws."

She turned to face the booth and cupped both hands to her mouth. "I'm wearing three layers of underwear!" The crowd laughed good-naturedly.

The commentators fell silent for a moment, before Aizawa's voice came back on the air. "I withdraw my complaint. Go get a fresh uniform and prepare for your next match."

She shot them a thumbs-up and strode out of the arena with a pep well and truly in her step. She picked up a new uniform from a helpful robot and shimmied into it as she headed back up to the seating area. As she was halfway up the stairs, she heard Present Mic wonder if anyone was going to melt the tower of ice Todoroki had left in the arena.

She came back to 1-A's seating area to a hero's welcome.

…

Shiozaki surveyed her opponent and bowed. She had seen this girl Kendo around before, and she knew she was up against the vice rep for Class 1-B, but all she knew about the other girl's Quirk was that the others had expected her to take a direct approach. It was something to use in melee combat, she was fairly certain.

The match began, and Shiozaki began to grow her vines and let them flow around her. She was aware that making herself a walking thorn-bush wasn't an ideal strategy for any kind of fast-paced emergency situation, and she was aware that it severely limited her awareness of her surroundings; but in a one-on-one match in a bright arena it was ideal. She sat within her cocoon of vines and contemplated her own good fortune in being born with such a Quirk, striving to remain humble even in the face of the blessings in her life.

Such humility was required (and put to good use) when Kendo attempted to grab her thorny shelter with outsized hands, only to flinch away, shrink them back to normal and instinctively suck the wounds. Not to be deterred, Kendo re-enlarged her right hand and drew back for a titanic blow. Shiozaki, however, had anticipated such a move and burrowed her vines deep into the arena floor like roots. Kendo struck, a punch fit to break down walls, and Shiozaki clung on for dear life. She managed, barely, to survive the attack and remain within the ring.

Kendo clutched her hand to her chest and let out a string of language that Shiozaki considered unbecoming of a hero, but understandable given the circumstances. Kendo raised her good hand and conceded the match.

She withdrew her vines and bowed to her opponent, and the pair talked quietly on their way out of the arena. It really was a lovely day, thought Shiozaki.

…

Uraraka bounced on her feet and observed her opponent in the brief calm before the match began. Iida was substantially bigger than her, of course, and she knew he was the Rep for his class which implied he probably had brains, too. She vaguely remembered seeing him back at the entrance exam, and he had seemed to have some kind of speed Quirk.

Her theory was confirmed when Midnight called the beginning of the match and Iida sprinted at her faster than she could see. It was only by luck that she managed to leap to the side in time, and only by luck that she dodged away from his outstretched hand. He skidded to a halt and swerved round to face her, and she knew she was going to have to get the timing absolutely right or she was sure to lose.

She waited for him to settle into a runner's pose and then activated her Quirk on herself. As she had suspected, he was even faster than the first time. She had barely managed to get above head height when he reached the spot she had been standing, and she was able to tag his shoulder as he screeched to a stop in a cloud of dust; or rather _tried_ to screech to a halt.

Uraraka had jumped straight up after removing her own gravity, and so she was gently floating more or less in place. Iida had no such luck, and was on course to impact somewhere in the stands when Uraraka deactivated her Quirk and sent them both back down to Earth. She landed in the arena with little more than a jolt. He landed on the grass outside, though to his credit he was able to roll with the landing and came up looking more winded than hurt.

"Winner – Uraraka!" shouted Midnight.

…

Tokoyami had always believed that one learned something new every day. Whether that was a school lesson, or a less tangible lesson on the nature of life or the human spirit, there was always something new to discover about this island Earth.

For instance, today he had learned that sticky tape shot out of some 1-B kid's giant elbows could stick to Dark Shadow and hold it to the floor. Truly, the world was a fascinating place.

"Dark Shadow, return!" he cried. The Quirk creature struggled beneath its tape bonds, managing with some effort to slip out from most of the sticky net and come back to him. He noted with some annoyance that the frayed remains of a few lengths of tape were still stuck to it, though they disappeared when it fully absorbed itself into his body once more.

He frowned. This could take some thought.

His opponent advanced towards him, hands outstretched. Tokoyami gave ground reluctantly, the rough genesis of a plan forming in his mind. He deliberately retreated slightly more slowly than Sero advanced, and when Sero lunged he was ready to meet the attack. The two grappled with each other, each too close to the other to use their Quirk to its full effect – or so Sero thought. While they were locked in close combat, Tokoyami sent Dark Shadow out behind him, creeping along the floor. It curled around them and, when the time was right, snatched at Sero's legs. He went toppling, and it was a simple matter for Tokoyami to direct his fall to land outside the arena.

"Winner – Tokoyami!"

…

Midoriya locked eyes with his opponent across the arena and grinned. From what he had seen of Tetsutetsu in the prior events, the boy was almost a clone of Kirishima. Assuming their Quirks worked more or less the same way, he had a plan for victory.

The match began and Tetsutetsu charged. Sure enough, he was soon coated in a layer of metal, his footsteps leaving craters in the arena floor behind him. Midoriya rolled away when he thought the time was right (later he would realise he had used the same timing he might against Kirishima) and at the same time reached out with Give and Take. He was able to take Tetsutetsu's Steel in time to prevent another metal-infused charge, and able to activate it himself in time to meet Tetsutetsu in melee.

He felt numb, which he supposed was natural enough given that his skin was now some kind of living metal. He was grateful that the effect was not as bad as what Ashido had described back when he had taken her Quirk; he couldn't think of any Quirk powerful enough to outweigh that kind of disorientation and confusion. When he could spare a split second to look at his own arms rather than his opponent he could see that he had not truly changed colour as Tetsutetsu did. Rather his skin had lost some of its own colour and taken on a dull sheen. If anything, rather than looking like a man of steel he thought he looked like he needed bed-rest and a bowl of chicken soup.

Even with Midoriya's newfound mass Tetsutetsu retained a strength advantage; Midoriya supposed that when your Quirk leant itself to hand-to-hand combat it paid to train for the occasion.

He broke off from the grapple and hopped backwards. The two opponents stared each other down, each waiting for the other to make a move; or perhaps to make a mistake.

"That's a dirty trick, isn't it?" asked Tetsutetsu.

"What, using my Quirk? Just like everyone else is?" asked Midoriya as he tried to control his anger. "If you want to fight Quirkless, go join a judo class or something. Or if you think I'm cheating somehow, go and whine to Midnight about how you don't like it when the other guy can take a punch!"

Tetsutetsu's eyes widened. "That's not what I meant!"

"Really? Because from where I'm standing it sounds like you think fighting is only fun when you're invincible and everyone else is made of paper." He realised belatedly that he was letting the conversation get away from him. Besides, nobody was going to win this match by winning a debate. He advanced on Tetsutetsu, noting idly that his limbs were heavier than normal – not in the sense that he was tired, but each movement had more presence, more force behind it. More momentum. That gave him an idea, and given that his first plan was out of the window due to Tetsutetsu's strength outside of his Quirk, he decided to go with his new Plan B.

He came in quickly and ducked low, managing to get underneath Tetsutetsu's guard and start grappling upwards. Ordinarily this would have been a losing strategy, but given his already shorter stature and his new metal form, his lower centre of gravity enabled him to keep his balance while he forced Tetsutetsu upwards and backwards. When he judged his opponent had passed the critical angle he brought up a knee and hit Tetsutetsu on the inside of his thigh. Tetsutetsu flinched and took his foot off the floor for just a moment. In that moment Midoriya surged forward and returned Tetsutetsu's Quirk all at once.

Off-balance, and once again far heavier than usual, Tetsutetsu went tilting backwards. Midoriya kept up, reactivating Pressure Drop to make sure his opponent tipped all the way over and landed flat on his back – with his head out of bounds. Midoriya noted with satisfaction that it had left a crater in the ground.

"Winner – Midoriya!"

He was making his way back to the stands when he heard Tetsutetsu groan and stand up.

"Hey, hold up!" cried Tetsutetsu as he jogged over. "Look, during the fight I uh...I guess I got heated. I was unfair to you. Uh, congratulations on winning."

Midoriya swallowed whatever lingering anger he had left. It generally wasn't in his nature to stay mad at people after they had apologised, and he could certainly understand how Tetsutetsu might say something he didn't really mean in the middle of a fight. He held out his fist, and Tetsutetsu obliged him with a friendly bump. "It's fine", said Midoriya, "For whatever it's worth I don't actually think you're, like, a bully or anything like that."

The two of them headed back to their respective seating areas as Midoriya plugged Tetsutetsu with questions about his Quirk.

…

It was unusual, but hardly worthy of comment, when Monoma walked up to Kirishima and shook his hand Western-style. It was slightly more noteworthy when he also shook Midnight's hand, but he simply grinned and explained it was always wise to be polite to the referee. Midnight, rather more charmed than she would want to let on, smiled and started the match.

The truth of the matter was revealed when Monoma held out his hands and released a cloud of purple gas into the arena. Kirishima tried to avoid it, but in the end he was forced to take a breath. He soon fell to the floor, fast asleep.

"Well _that_ looked familiar", commented Midnight wryly, "You're aware you weren't supposed to use your Quirk on _me_, right?"

Monoma shrugged. "I was making use of the arena environment to give myself the advantage. I'm aware it was unorthodox, but it seemed reasonable to me."

"Very well", declared Midnight. "Monoma, your victory will stand. There was no rule against what you did, and your logic is sound in theory. However, going forward all competitors will be restricted to direct interactions _only with their opponent_. The only reason you have to interact with anyone else is to yield or ask for medical attention. Understood?"

"Perfectly", replied Monoma. "The same trick wouldn't have worked twice in a row, anyway."

When Kirishima woke up shortly afterwards, he had to laugh. Sure, it wasn't how he would have wanted to go out, but he could at least respect the thinking behind it.

…

Kaminari spread out his arms and let sparks run up and down them, and around his fingers. Sure, he was showboating – but wasn't the whole point of the sports festival to strut your stuff? He advanced towards his opponent slowly, wary of making sudden movements lest she hit him with a bean bag gun or something.

Yaoyorozu backed up slowly, retreating back towards the boundary of the arena. When Kaminari judged that they were in the right spot, he lunged forwards to tackle her to the ground. He reached out with both hands, pumping as much juice as he safely could into them. As he lunged, something huge and grey erupted out of Yaoyorozu and instantly covered her.

Momentum being what it is, he continued towards her even as he realised that the insulation (for that was surely what it was) would nullify his quirk. Well, that wasn't the end of the world. The two of them tumbled to the ground and struggled with each other. Kaminari grappled with her until he was able to heft her up, rubber sheet and all, and carry her like a squirming sack of potatoes towards the edge of the ring. "I'm a genius!", he declared.

A slender arm flung itself out of the bundle and struck Kaminari square in the jaw. He flinched back, more startled than actually hurt, and then moved back in to continue hauling his load to the arena boundary. The brief second he wasn't moving seemed to be all the delay Yaoyorozu needed, as she leapt out of the sheet with boxing gloves on. She kept him off balance and though she couldn't get in another hit as that first, half-accidental slug she managed to force him out of the arena. Kaminari stayed on his feet throughout, though it looked like a close thing.

"Winner – Yaoyorozu Momo!" declared Midnight.

"I did it!" cheered Yaoyorozu as Kaminari straightened himself up. The two shook hands and made their way back up to the stands, chatting amiably.

…

Bakugo sprung from the waiting room and half-jogged down the corridor looking for his opponent in the upcoming match. He managed to catch her at the top of her staircase, and was oddly pleased. "Hey, Pinky!" he called.

She turned back to him. "Yeah?"

He crossed his arms and sneered a challenge at her. "Don't think I'm gonna just stand there like an idiot. I'm gonna beat your ass!"

She grinned and pointed at him. "You can try, buster!"

They made their separate ways down to the arena and waited impatiently as Midnight raised her hand above her head. Ashido bounced from foot to foot, her hands in a ready position, as Bakugo rolled his shoulders and twitched his fingers.

The match began, and instantly it was very different to his last. Ashido sprinted at him on a trail of acid just as he leapt at her on the force of an explosion, and the two of them met in the middle in what quickly became a graceless brawl. Each swung at the other, each kicked and clawed and though neither of them bit, each was willing to keep the option on the table if things got dicey.

When Bakugo was lucky, he was able to burn away her acid in the air. When he was unlucky, it clung to him and burned, though not as much as he knew it could have if she was really out for blood. He scowled and flung a real explosion at her.

She dodged, barely, and rolled out of the melee. "What the hell?" she yelled as she sprung to her feet, "You tryin' to kill me or something?"

"You dodged, didn't you?" he replied as he lunged at her again.

"Asshole", she snapped, before rolling with his tackle and getting him in the side of the head with a well-placed elbow. She briefly managed to get on top of him, but he powered through it and hefted her off. She flung her acid at him as she sailed through the air, and when he rolled out of the way he was startled to see it eat into the floor.

So, it seemed she was putting as much into the match as he was after all. Good. He evaporated the next stream of acid in mid-air with one hand, and then let off a blast from the other as he closed with her. She stumbled and raised her hands to her eyes, and he took the opportunity to shoulder-barge into her and grapple her to the ground once more. She grunted in pain as they landed, but was soon grappling and clawing at him with just as much vigour as before.

Bakugo was dimly aware that the commentators were yelling about something, but he was more immediately aware that Ashido was trying to scratch his eyes out, so they just faded into background noise. He struck down at her again, and this time she didn't come back up. He slowly, cautiously crawled back, unsure if he had won just yet. His caution was well-deserved, as when he had almost stood up she sprung up to come at him again. On reflex, he flung both hands in front of him and let off a blast. It wasn't what he could produce if he had time to prepare, but it was enough to force her back; and that was enough to force her out of bounds.

Midnight declared him the winner. He took a step towards Ashido before he even knew he had decided to help her up, but she took the matter out of his hands by slowly getting to her feet. She groaned, and then looked at him. "Hey, Bakugo?"

"Yeah?"

She stepped closer to him and failed to control a wince. "You better win. If you're gonna go around beating me you better go all the way, because I don't lose to just anyone."

He grinned. "Damn right I'm gonna win", he said, and somehow it was more a promise than a boast. They made their way towards Recovery Girl's medical centre, each decidedly the worse for wear but each confident that they had given it their all.

…

He reached the arena before Tokoyami, and as his opponent was climbing up the brief flight of steps Midnight took the opportunity to speak to him. "Midoriya. You saw that stunt Monoma pulled?"

He nodded. "Yeah. It was pretty clever."

She looked non-plussed, though he wasn't certain why. "Right. Anyway, I told him to stick to the opponent's Quirks only, and I'm giving you the same instruction."

Midoriya shrugged. "Sure, seems fair."

"Very well. Midoriya, Tokoyami – begin!"

Midoriya regretted not having been able to train with Tokoyami previously. Though he was aware of Dark Shadow's capabilities, he had no real idea of its physical properties, or even if it had any particular strengths or weaknesses. He had seen it roaming far and wide during the earlier cavalry battle, but as their own team had been staying far away from the one that included Tokoyami, he hadn't even been able to get a good look then. His only option was to press forward, and see what he could figure out over the course of the match.

He briefly considered taking Dark Shadow with his own Quirk, but decided against it. Tokoyami had asked him not to out of a concern for safety before either of them had any inkling they might face off against each other – taking it now would be a dirty trick at best, and a betrayal of trust at worst. So, he was limited to his own Quirk, or rather his own three Quirks. Telepathy was irrelevant, and he had no idea how Pressure Drop or Shock Absorption would interact with Dark Shadow.

He grinned. It wasn't every day he got to experiment with Quirks on live national television.

As Midoriya had expected, Tokoyami started the match by calling out Dark Shadow and sending it at him. He dived away from its reaching claws and sent a blast of air pressure at it. As he had feared, it seemed unfazed. Either Dark Shadow wasn't affected by wind and air, or it would take more than he could manage. In either case, one of his most valuable tools had proven ineffective, and he was left with his recently-borrowed Shock Absorption.

Well, he supposed, he was never going to win by beating Dark Shadow anyway. Tokoyami was the one in control, and he was the one to beat to move on to the next round. Midoriya activated his last remaining useful Quirk and angled himself to keep an eye on both Tokoyami and Dark Shadow at once. The Quirk creature loomed up and tried to loop itself around him, to trap him in a rough horseshoe shape. Midoriya continued to sidle towards Tokoyami, well aware that sooner or later one of them was going to have to make a real move.

Tokoyami and Dark Shadow leapt at him in tandem – some internal part of Midoriya wondered if they could communicate telepathically to some degree. He lashed out with a kick and caught Dark Shadow in the head, and was gratified to hear it grunt with pain. His main focus, however, was on warding off Tokoyami. Neither of them were exactly giants, but what little size advantage there was lay with Midoriya. He used this to try and make it a slugging match, punching at Tokoyami and keeping him away. Tokoyami seemed to be aware that Midoriya was using his Shock Absorption, as every advance he made was an attempt to grapple.

He was able to strike Tokoyami's hands away from himself, and even to fend off Dark Shadow for a time, but the fact was that he was fighting two-on-one. Inevitably, he began to fade. Tokoyami came closer to getting to grips with each attempt, and whenever Midoriya forced him back, his opponent was able to close the gap just a little sooner than the time before. Dark Shadow, for its part, never tired.

At last, he felt Dark Shadow grip his shoulders and yank him backwards, and he knew it was the end. Tokoyami rushed him in a coordinated assault, and held in place as he was he couldn't help but be flung out. He landed flat on his back and the air was driven from his lungs. Disappointment bubbled up in Midoriya's heart. He'd known it wouldn't be easy; he'd known everyone else was giving it their all just the same as him, and he'd known that making it this far into the third round – making it into the third round at all – was enough to put him on the map. On top of that, he understood what an achievement for Tokoyami this victory was. But that didn't mean he had to be completely happy about it.

He shoved down his disappointed feelings and shook Tokoyami's hand. "Well done", he said, and he was glad to find he meant it.

…

It was a matter of split seconds. Shiozaki detached the vines from her head when she saw Uraraka reach for them, and so what was rendered weightless was a few individual vines, and not Shiozaki herself. Had she been even a second slower, she would almost certainly have been forced to concede.

The disembodied vines writhed slowly in the air, looking almost like overgrown seaweed. Shiozaki lurked within the ring of undulating green, and she was gratified to see Uraraka backing away from them slowly as if they might lash out at her at a moment's notice. She regrew her head of vines and made her way serenely towards her opponent.

Uraraka lunged at her again, this time aiming lower. It was a sound move, but also an obvious one, and Shiozaki had planned ahead. At the same time that she brought her arms up to block, she grew her vines over and around them, forming sleeves of vine and thorn. They dug into her arms, deep enough to bleed, but a lifetime of cuts and scratches whenever she was careless made it bearable, at least for the time being. Uraraka was not so lucky. She pulled her hands away instantly, though Shiozaki could see that they were already dripping red.

Uraraka made a miserable, pained noise, and then came back for another attack. Inwardly, Shiozaki was impressed. Not many would be willing to continue what was fundamentally a friendly match with lacerations all over their palms.

Unfortunately for Uraraka, the will to fight was not in and of itself enough to win. Her hands were shredded, and she was unable to get to grips with her opponent properly. Shiozaki knew she was fighting an opponent effectively at half-strength. That proved to make all the difference, and it was a relatively simple matter to wrestle Uraraka out of bounds. The other girl accepted her loss with good grace, and the two nodded respectfully to each other as Midnight called the winner.

"Winner – Shiozaki!"

…

To nobody's very great surprise, Yaoyorozu refused Monoma's offer of a handshake before their match. For his part, Monoma shrugged nonchalantly and stood ready for the start of the fight.

When Midnight called the beginning, Monoma proved he had learned from Kaminari's error and rushed Yaoyorozu immediately. In preparation for such an attack she hastily produced a shield, and was able to use it to hold off Monoma's jabs and strikes. She suffered a couple of glancing blows when they came from unexpected angles, but was able to redirect one of Monoma's attacks and fling him a couple of feet away. Only when she backed away herself and began preparing a weapon did she realise Monoma had gotten exactly what he wanted out of the exchange – a chance to lay a hand on her and copy her Creation.

However, it seemed his own lack of specialist knowledge was preventing him from making the best use of it. She quickly realised that her best chance of success lay in using his own plan against him. He was producing some kind of weapon from the palm of his hand, though it looked like it may have been nothing more complicated than an iron bar. As he stared down at his hand and frantically muttered "Come on, come on you stupid thing!" she knew it was the time to strike. Yaoyorozu resisted the urge to get fancy and made herself a basic Guandao, leaving off the red tassels and lacquer finish on the handle that would have tied the look together.

Aesthetic considerations aside, she hefted her new weapon and charged at him. Monoma bit off a curse and raised his half-formed weapon in a hasty block. Yaoyorozu pressed the attack with a flurry of blows, and Monoma quickly found that half a weapon was barely a weapon at all. After one particularly forceful strike, the haft of what might have eventually been a club went spinning from his hand and landed outside the arena. Yaoyorozu pointed her blade straight at him.

Monoma did the only reasonable thing and yielded.

"Winner – Yaoyorozu!"

…

"Winner – Bakugo!"

Tokoyami sighed as he took Bakugo's offered hand.

"Hey man", said Bakugo, "Bad match-up, that's all."

"No", replied Tokoyami, "you won fair and square."

…

Shiozaki surrounded herself with her familiar cocoon of vines and peered out. She knew she likely couldn't rely on the same plan that had defeated Kendo, and she was prepared to take a more proactive role against Yaoyorozu. She smiled with quiet confidence as her vines reached deep into the arena floor and started spreading out from her green haven. Whatever Yaoyorozu was creating would do her no good if Shiozaki could wrap her vines around the other girl's legs and immobilise her.

Her confidence lasted right up until she heard the sound of a small engine starting and idling. She cast her eyes around the arena until she saw Yaoyorozu with a chainsaw in her hands.

"I concede!" she called out hurriedly as she withdrew her vines.

"Winner – Yaoyorozu!"

…

"Ladies and gentlemen!" cried Present Mic, his voice somehow as strong as ever after a day of shouting, "This _is_ your main event of the afternoon! To my left is the Class Rep of 1-A, the ever-resourceful Yaoyorozu Momo! To my right is the lightning fast Bakugo Katsuki, also of Class 1-A! Which of these two will be crowned the winner? There's only one way to find out!"

Bakugo contemplated his opponent and tried to catalogue what he knew of her. She made objects out of her own body's fat supplies, which were of course also energy supplies. From that fact, a simple question emerged: How long could she go before she wore out? Longer than he could? He suspected the answer would determine the outcome of the match.

The match started and he attacked. He knew that it was using his own fuel supplies, but there was no way he could avoid that and he didn't want to let her make anything big. It was a cliché and an exaggeration that the best defence was a good offence, but in this case he believed it was true. He was immediately able to close to hand-to-hand range, and it was all Yaoyorozu could do to dodge his swipes. He was pleased to see she was unable to produce anything from her hands, right until the moment he heard a metallic clang behind her and she dropped low. She came back up holding a metal staff and swinging for his legs.

He leapt back and belatedly realised he had put himself at the ideal range for her to strike at him. He rolled under a swing seemingly meant to catch him in the chest and used the moment of freedom to back away further. She'd changed the game with that staff, and he was going to have to come at her from another angle to succeed.

Or perhaps the angle wasn't the issue. A plan formed in his mind, one he knew carried a risk of serious injury – but that was what Recovery Girl was for, right? He'd gotten off easy enough so far, so what was a broken bone or two, really?

He ran in at her again and waited for her long swing. She was no slouch with that staff, but equally she was no pro. She attacked him like an extra in a kung fu movie, treating the staff like an oversized baseball bat. Taking advantage of this, he blasted away from where her strike would land. Then he went in again, and dodged again. He kept this up for long enough that it became a pattern, now rushing her and now attacking at a more moderate pace. He saw the hope in her eyes, the belief that she just had to get that one good hit in to end the match.

Then he didn't dodge. He let her swing again, to catch him on yet another reckless rush, but this time he brought his left arm up to catch the blow. His forearm hurt immensely, and he could barely grip the staff, but it was enough to let him get in close. He brought his good right arm up and blasted her in the face, point blank. Naturally, she went flying, though not quite far enough to put her out of bounds. She rolled into the landing and seemed to avoid the worst of the damage. Her staff was not so lucky, and pieces of it went spiralling off around the arena at random.

Bakugo grinned wolfishly as he watched Yaoyorozu climb back to her feet. She was clearly slowing. He knew that he was, but she definitely seemed to be suffering more as the match went on. It seemed he had found the answer to his question, and it was one that favoured him. He let off a few sparks as he approached her again, careful to make them loud enough to hear but not large enough to take anything out of him. His left arm hurt like crazy, but there was no helping that now. She had to know he was flagging, but if he could make her believe he was still nearly at full capacity, she might try something desperate.

She produced a long club, something like an eskrima stick. If he had to guess it was made of some synthetic polymer, probably a heat-resistant variety. Oh, well. No desperation there.

He continued to move towards her, but more slowly. As he had hoped, she took the opportunity to charge him, and he readied himself to receive it. He was able to dodge or deflect her first few powerful swings, and before long the close-in fighting prevented her from getting a good wind-up. She was soon unable to hit him very much harder than she would have bare-handed, and at that point he grabbed her wrist in his right hand and with his left (a little more alive now, maybe nothing was broken after all) blasted her club out of her hand. She created another, identical club, but was soon in the same position and unable to really use it. She threw that one away herself; which at least saved Bakugo the trouble.

She swung at him with brass knuckles on (and when had she had time to make those?), and in that instant he realised the flaw in his own thinking. Just because he could win with his Quirk, didn't mean he had to.

So, he kicked her legs out from under her. As she fell he barrelled into her and he managed to land kneeling on one of her arms. He grabbed the other in one hand and pointed it away from him, and then put his left, palm first, against her head. "Give up!" he snapped.

She seemed unwilling. He could respect it, but more than that he wanted to win. He popped a couple of sparks and snarled "You wanna look like pretty-boy? Give up!"

Her eyes widened. She realised, or at least believed, that he was serious. "I yield!" she cried.

He stood up, and offered her a hand. The entire stadium was going wild, but they were close enough together that they could talk. "Well done", he said.

"I should be saying that to you, surely" she panted, "That was superb."

He grinned.

…

Shiozaki and Tokoyami stood with quiet pride next to each other on the third place podium. Yaoyorozu smiled demurely from the second place podium. On the first place podium, Bakugo grinned openly at the crowd. The audience roared their approval. The cameras flashed, and households around Japan watched on in awe. Midoriya, watching with the rest of the competitors, knew that it was only by a supreme force of will that Bakugo resisted the urge to pace and fire off explosions as he waited for the medals.

For his medal.

Midoriya had read once about some European warlord who, upon having declared himself emperor (the Europeans had been into that sort of thing, back in the pre-Quirk days) grew so impatient at his own coronation that he snatched the crown from the priest's hands and placed it upon his own head. That, to him, was Bakugo in a nutshell. Not only was he determined to be the greatest, but he would be the greatest on his own schedule and nobody else's.

And then All Might was there. Even in such a massive stadium, he was larger than life. All eyes were drawn to him as he strode towards the podium, medals in hand. He gave each to its deserving recipient, and offered each of them some words of praise and encouragement not meant for the cameras and the world stage. When he placed the gold around Bakugo's neck, the boy held his hands straight up and let off a thunderous blast. The crowd cheered all the harder. This was truly his moment.

Little did they know that in a bar in Kamino ward another regarded the ceremony with envious eyes; and slowly and surely drew his plans against UA.

…

As Shinso made his way through tunnels around the arena, he found part of himself regretting having stuck around to watch the rest of the tournament. Sure, it had been fascinating to watch the other students in action – and, after the dressing down he'd received from his own opponent, to think about how any of the losers could have come up with a Plan B and turned it around. But now he was trying to find the changing rooms while everyone else was heading for the exit. He was lost in a sea of people until he saw an island of dark blue up ahead. It seemed that the other contestants had all gathered in a small foyer. The participants in the third round were all there, as were at least a few who had gone out earlier. Joining their friends, he assumed. Out of curiosity more than anything else, he wandered over to them.

"Oh hey, there you are!" cheered one of them, a blonde guy with a black streak in his hair. "Shinso, right? We're all goin' out to grab an early dinner, you want in?"

Shinso prevaricated. It wasn't that he hated the idea of getting something to eat, but he really didn't know how well he'd fit in with everyone else.

"Come with us!" someone with red hair cried, and then it snowballed into seemingly every other contestant inviting him along. In the end, he had to bow to the inevitable.

Midoriya suppressed a giggle as he watched Shinso get dragooned into making friends.

Shinso held up one finger. "Hold up. I gotta call home and tell them I won't be back for a while." He fished his phone out of his pocket and made a call. "Hey, Kamimura. Could you tell Miss Nagata I'll be out late? Thanks. Yeah, with some of the other kids from the sports festival. See ya." He pocketed his phone, only to find the others giving him odd looks. "What?"

"You guys call your mom miss?", asked Bakugo.

Shinso raised an eyebrow. "No, we call the director of the foster home 'miss'. I've never met my mother." He shrugged, "Or my father, but I guess at least I've got a photo of him."

Ashido gasped. "That's so sad!"

"What? No it isn't, I love the foster home". His face took on a beatific look as he recalled happy days spent fishing, riding bicycles and exploring the local countryside with the other foster kids. "That place _rules_."

"Alright, well, they're not gonna mind you going out for dinner or anything, are they?" asked Uraraka.

"Nah, they trust us all to stay out of trouble. Especially when I made it into the finals of the UA sports festival, you know?"

The meal was a pleasant one, albeit casual; so many of the competitors had joined them that their only real option was fast food. And so they descended upon a burger joint and ended up occupying the entire upper floor.

Midoriya found himself at the centre of it all, half chatting with Uraraka and half watching everything around him. Bakugo was speaking with Ashido; whatever their topic, it seemed to require a lot of pointing and gesturing, though fortunately little shouting from either party. Yaoyorozu had somehow wrangled Todoroki, who seemed wholly unfamiliar with Western fast food. He was gamely pressing on with his fried chicken wrap, so Midoriya supposed he was at least willing to experiment. Shinso had started on the periphery, which was natural enough given he didn't really know any of them, but just as Midoriya was wondering if he should wave him over Kaminari and Kirishima managed to drag him into their discussion. By some ill-timed demonstration of his quirk he managed to get Pony squirted with ketchup. Fortunately she saw the funny side of it and convinced him to join her table. By the time it was over he had gravitated around the room to almost all the little groups.

The sports festival, which had seemed a matter of life and death, was over. Really, thought Midoriya, the only slight dampener on the afternoon was the way Iida had left the arena after his match. He shrugged. Kendo had said it was a family situation. Probably best just to leave him to it.

...

br

iBoy howdy, that was a lot of fighting./i

I said in an earlier chapter note that I expected this story to focus more narrowly on Midoriya going forward. Fool that I am, I had forgotten about the sports festival.

Fun fact, Ashido-Tokoroki and Bakugo-Shinso were two of the first things I came up with for this story. When it was in its embryonic state, I realised that a different class layout would mean a different sports festival, and from there those two matches and their outcomes came naturally to me. I understand that Ashido beating Todoroki is an upset, but by Horikoshi's own admission Ashido is a top-tier student who just happens never to have had a real chance to shine. With that in mind, here's her taste of the spotlight.

Todoroki could have won it almost until the end, if it weren't for his various hangups. In particular, after discussing his home life he was very unwilling to physically strike Ashido. I say this not to diminish her victory, because she did earn it, but she won that fight once she got into melee range and didn't let him disengage. Todoroki didn't get a taste of punch therapy from Midoriya this time, so he'll have to make his own way for now.

Our boy Midoriya also went out, but Tokoyami is another of the strongest in the class. I believe that all the fights and results are more or less reasonable, but if you disagree strongly please do let me know.

Additional fun fact, I used wrestling terminology to plan out the tournament in my notes. I find it meshes very well with shonen anime. This also bled its way into Present Mic's commentary. Speaking of which, I am conscious of the fact that I made very little use of that. Frankly, this chapter was long enough and had enough moving parts already, without a Greek Chorus thrown in to the mix.


	8. Learning by Doing

_Learning by Doing_

Their first day back at school got off to an inauspicious start, as Midoriya found himself sprinting for the train while the rain soaked him through. He ended up next to Bakugo, more by luck than judgement, and made a futile attempt to fix his hair as his friend scowled out the window. It was a grey day, and the weather seemed unlikely to clear up any time soon.

Bakugo hated rain, and had ever since his Quirk had come in. He'd never even needed to use his Quirk on a rainy day, but the simple knowledge that it would weaken him in some hypothetical rain-slicked fight scene (possibly against a deadly sword-master, or something similarly dramatic) was enough to sour his mood.

They passed their morning journey in friendly chatter until, "Hey, you kids – aren't you from the festival?"

"Say, yeah, you're the first year winner!"

The rest of the commuters came to life, and Midoriya suddenly found himself in the centre of attention – or rather, next to it. Bakugo did not preen, but he did appreciate the situation. Midoriya got his fair share of "Oh yeah, you did quite well too" but for the most part the winner was the one getting the attention.

Somewhere towards the end of the journey, some well-meaning individual asked if Bakugo had not been a little rough with his opponents; or more specifically the two girls. Ashido and Yaoyorozu had both put up a good fight, and had both lasted longer than poor Tokoyami, and as a result Bakugo had had to go to the well to beat them. From an outside perspective, he could see how it wouldn't be pretty – while a heroics student understood that his classmates were all there to try their best and give it their all, civilians could be a little slow on the uptake about that sort of thing.

Bakugo scoffed loudly. "I didn't do anything to them that they wouldn't do to me. Gotta do what you gotta do to win, right?"

"I get it", said one commuter, a smartly-dressed young woman, "like Endeavor, right? He's said in interviews about how it's important to end the fight fast, because that's better in the long run even if it's brutal in the moment."

"Exactly!" agreed Bakugo, "100 percent!"

Midoriya sat silently and contemplated what Todoroki had told him before the tournament. He had always admired Endeavor as a hero. Given the man's excellent record for solving crimes and catching villains, it would have been hard not to. And yet, now he had to weigh his admiration for the hero second only to All Might with the knowledge of what he was like behind closed doors. Did the good he had done outweigh his evil deeds? How much good did it take to tip the balance of those scales? How much evil?

These questions ran through his mind for the remainder of the journey, and it was only with difficulty that he was able to put them to one side and focus on the schoolday at hand. Difficult as it was to accept, there was simply nothing he could do at that moment in time. Going forward he wanted to help Todoroki however possible, but for the time being he was simply Midoriya Izuku, UA Student and aspiring hero. He plodded forward through the rain and made his way into UA, Bakugo stomping along beside him in his usual gruff manner.

He thought he might have seen Iida on the way in, but it was across a crowded room and the other boy was in his raincoat anyway, so he couldn't be sure. Hopefully that family emergency, whatever it had been, was over now. He made his way to class, and found Aizawa waiting to make an announcement. He wondered if Aizawa ever really left the school; and if so, where he went.

With his typical bluntness, their teacher explained that they were all coming up with their hero names, or at least their provisional names. That was exciting enough, until All Might burst through the door with a hearty greeting.

All Might beamed out at them, resplendent in a bold yellow business suit. "Hello there, boys and girls! I flatter myself that I know a thing or two about this business, so I'll be overseeing today's class. All of you, take a whiteboard. Now, write down your planned hero name and then come up and show the class. I'll give you a little feedback, and we'll soon have 20 inspiring young heroes on our hands!" He gave them all a thumbs-up and a blinding grin.

They passed the boards around, and each set to writing their ideas down. Before long, Mina bounced to the front of the class with her customary enthusiasm. "I wanna be called – Alien Queen!" she declared.

All Might rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Alien Queen, huh? That's kinda fun! And it brings us to another important point – branding. With that alien idea, there's so much you can do with robots and space ships and all the rest, it could be merchandising gold."

Mina nodded excitedly. "First thing, I wanna get a good sneaker deal. They'll be shiny black with, like, neon green detailing to be alien egg slime."

All Might boomed a powerful laugh. "I love it!"

As Mina hopped back to her seat excitedly, she passed an equally excited Pony on her way up. Pony held up a whiteboard covered in English writing, with slightly shaky hiragana underneath. "The Silver Ranger!" she declared with a grin.

All Might nodded eagerly. "I noticed a cowboy theme in your costume. You're sticking to that?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then give me a hearty hi-ho, Silver!" He shot her a thumbs-up. "Remember – and this goes for all of you – it's important to commit to your gimmick."

"Do we need a gimmick?" asked Todoroki, "I want to be a hero for my own reasons, not so I can be in the list of Top 10 Elemental Shticks or something."

All Might chuckled. "It's true, outlandish themes aren't for everyone. Your gimmick can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. It doesn't have to be set in stone right now, but once you find the kind of hero you want to be, I want each of you to embrace it and live it to the full." He clapped his hands once. "Young Todoroki, I can see that you have more to say about this. We could speak after class if you have further questions."

"Thank you, All Might. I'd really appreciate that."

Midoriya sat quietly and thought as the rest of the class announced their chosen hero names in turn. The kind of hero he wanted to be...it seemed like such a simple idea, but did he really know the answer? He had the ability to take the Quirks of others and use them as his own, but he had barely any experience with that. He had three Quirks to his name, two of which had any practical use and one he had taken as a kindness.

But how could he get more? Trading Quirks wouldn't give him a broader arsenal, just a different one. The idea of taking Quirks from the villains he would arrest briefly occurred to him, but with a shudder he rejected it. He might as well cut their hands off, or render them deaf. The only people from whom he could take a Quirk without their missing it would be the dying, and he hardly relished the thought of hanging around fights hoping that one of his allies took a mortal blow.

It was appropriate that he should think about this while All Might pontificated on what made a great hero. The Symbol of Peace had been his inspiration as a child (most of the class could probably say the same) and had been his first clear idea of what a hero ought to be. As time had gone on, he had moved away from that idea. It hadn't been a sudden realisation, but one day he had understood that All Might was no longer his idol. He didn't really know who was, these days. He didn't really know if he had one.

As Uraraka, newly dubbed Uravity, returned to her seat, All Might cleared his throat. "Young Midoriya, do you have your name chosen yet?"

"Uh, sure thing". He made his way to the front of the class and held up his whiteboard. "Myriad, the Hero with a thousand Quirks."

"You have three", commented Tsuyu.

He scratched the back of his head and grinned awkwardly. "It's a work in progress," he admitted.

"About that title", asked All Might, "are you certain?"

Midoriya nodded. "What I want is for any villains I fight to never quite be sure what Quirks I could pull out of the bag."

All Might nodded, and the gesture was surprisingly subdued. "I appreciate that, and I can certainly see the value in it. My concern is how you might be seen by the public as a whole."

"H-how do you mean?" asked Midoriya, feeling as if he were suddenly on uncertain ground.

"Well", interjected Kaminari, "Here's the thing. I'm Takeshi Kongo, average jackass civilian, right? I know you can take people's Quirks, but that's about it."

"Uh, sure." Midoriya personally found it a little difficult to put himself into the shoes of someone who didn't research heroes and Quirks like a fanatic, but he knew that he was in the minority on that score.

Kaminari nodded eagerly, "OK, so you just showed up to a bank robbery to save the day."

"So far so good." He wasn't sure how many bank robberies really happened; or at least how many physical robberies that would require a hero's presence, but it was one of the go-to scenarios for how a hero could approach a crime in progress.

"Now!" Kaminari pointed at him, "How do I know you're not going to take my Quirk? Either to fight the villain at hand and then return it, or just take it and keep it?"

"What?" asked Midoriya, "Of course I won't, why would I just go around taking Quirks from people?"

"But how do I know that?" persisted Kaminari, "Like, dude, don't get me wrong. It's a cool name and all. But we know you're not an asshole. The general public might not."

He returned to his seat and passed Bakugo, who was on his way up. Bakugo declared loudly and boldly that his hero name would be Detonate, and nobody seemed to have a problem with the idea. Midoriya got the impression Bakugo rather wished they had, just so he could have a reason for a good shouting match.

…

After this, Mr Aizawa was able to move on to the next major topic of the day. "Now", he began, "There is one major outcome of the sports festival that we have yet to address. Internship week is coming up, and agencies from around the country have sent offers based on what they observed. In addition, you will all receive a list of agencies we have prior arrangements with, so even those of you who didn't get to shine this year will have the chance to gain practical experience."

Midoriya looked through his list, excited and pleased to have received so many offers. He may not have made it to the podium, but even getting into the tournament was a good way to get noticed, and he'd put in the best performance he could once he was there. Correspondingly, he had a respectable list of pro heroes and hero agencies willing to take him on as an intern. As Mr Aizawa had said they were based all around the country, and some were the Japanese branches of the largest agencies in the USA, China and Korea.

What he wanted from his internship, more than anything else, was to learn. There were plenty of experienced heroes available; indeed some of those making offers had by now spent more time training the younger generations than they ever did actively fighting crime or performing rescues. But the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to intern under a young hero, or at least a relatively young one. There was perhaps a touch of arrogance in imagining himself on even footing with a real pro, but he genuinely did feel that he would benefit more from being able to engage with a young buck than an old hand.

As he pondered this, Ashido stared down at her list in shock. "Holy _crap_, you guys! I got an offer from Endeavor!"

"That's pretty sweet", commented Kaminari. "I guess if you can't beat 'em, hire 'em."

"That's exactly the reason", said Todoroki quietly. "He's not really interested in you; he's interested in the person that beat me."

Ashido wailed and slumped down over her desk. "Maaaaan, this sucks! I get an offer from the second best in Japan, and it's not even really for me! This is like some kinda stupid reverse nepotism or something!"

"But I mean, to be fair", mused Kirishima, "He's an emitter, you're kind of like an emitter. If we're gonna go by rankings, he's the best emitter in the country. I bet you could learn a bunch from him!"

Todoroki nodded. "Absolutely." He looked like he was about to say more, but then clammed up. Ashido guessed she'd put him in an awkward spot by talking about his dad's internship offer, so she didn't blame him.

She continued to stare at the list of offers, as if it might suddenly give her an easier choice. Finally, she huffed a sigh. "You know what? I'm not gonna do it. I also got an offer from Mirko, and she was already on my dream-list of pros to work with before the festival. Screw the rankings."

She'd been worried Todoroki might be upset, but he seemed happy for her. "Mirko's a great heroine, and I'm sure she'll teach you a lot."

"Well I'm gonna take the offer he gave me", interjected Bakugo loudly.

"You got one from Endeavor too?" she asked, "Neat. Stands to reason he'd want the winner, right?"

"Damn right. Everyone on the podium got offers from all the top 10, minus All Might." He shrugged, "Woulda been fun to have someone else there at the same time, but whatever."

Uraraka, as it transpired, was taking the internship offer from Mount Lady. The Mineyama hero had made her start in rescue missions, and Uraraka explained that this was where she wanted to focus her efforts. Midoriya wished her the best; he sincerely hoped his friend would learn a lot. That being said, he also made her promise to get him an autograph if it was at all possible.

Towards the end of lunch, Midoriya remembered that he had agreed to sort the supply cupboard and/or treasure trove of Yaoyorozu's creations. When he was busily involved in this, he heard someone else enter the room. He thought nothing of it until he heard All Might start talking in low, measured tones. By the time he realised that he was accidentally eavesdropping, it was too late for him to make an inconspicuous exit. He was trapped in the supply cupboard, forced to listen in on one half of a conversation he inferred wasn't for his ears at all.

"Sir Nighteye", said the Symbol of Peace in an oddly quiet and rough voice, "it's been a while since we last talked. Well, talked really, I mean."

A pause. "Yes, I got your email. About the boy. I've been looking myself, you know." Another, shorter pause. "No, really! I've got a shortlist of candidates and everything. Still, your young lad seems to be ideal, at least on the face of it. I'll be happy to meet him."

Midoriya held his breath. Was All Might going to take on a sidekick? What an exciting thought! There was a longer pause before All Might resumed talking. "Well, I'm hardly going to make this decision in a day, no matter what happens. I'll see him during the internship week. You too, I suppose. It's been...good speaking to you. I left this too long, and I apologise. Again."

Midoriya heard All Might leave, and for safety's sake he gave it a few seconds before he crept out of the cupboard. He poked his head out into the hall, but there was no sign of All Might. Just some tall, skinny guy wandering away. Midoriya guessed he was a teacher for the Business Course or something.

The first day of the internships was on them startlingly quickly. Midoriya supposed Class 1-A must have made quite a sight as they gathered at the train station, ready to head off to all corners of Japan. Some of them were headed in the same direction, at least for part of the journey – Shiozaki and Tsuyu were chatting quietly as they waited for their train towards the coast, while an excited Pony bounced questions off Yaoyorozu and Ojiro. Others, such as Todoroki, were absorbed in their own little worlds. Midoriya supposed he fell into that category, too.

His journey was brief, and quiet. Some of the others posted pictures from their own travels to the class group chat (Bakugo's shot of the river Tama sparkling in the sunlight was particularly nice) but he didn't have anything worth sharing until he reached his destination.

Kamui Woods' office was clean, bright and barely used. As he explained on the long elevator ride up he had only recently moved in, and the office (or more accurately suite of offices, as he had half a floor of a tower in the centre of town) had previously been occupied by a loan company. The company had gone out of business due to a lack of funding, which seemed to amuse Kamui Woods. In addition to the office space was comfortable and well-furnished living quarters for Kamui Woods and up to three sidekicks or interns; Midoriya being the only other occupant at the time. Truthfully it was more space than he needed, but he had gotten the lease for a very low price and he had considered it better to have room for future growth than to find himself moving again in six months.

Midoriya had never considered that real estate might be part of the pro hero industry in the same way as costumes and merch deals. Throughout the week in between patrols and day-to-day work Kamui Woods gave him impromptu lectures and quizzes on various aspects of the pro hero industry. It encouraged Midoriya to think about a lot of questions he previously hadn't; or to think about old issues from a new angle. He had had a vague idea that things like bribery took place, but Kamui had described corruption and collusion in subtle forms he hadn't imagined. He had been generally aware of how heroes spoke in public, but not of the voice training tips that would let him be an authoritative yet approachable presence. So it went for everything from how to present himself in interviews to what to do if he was the first to respond to a house fire, and every other possible facet of the hero industry.

One sunny afternoon found them patrolling on one of Kamui Woods' usual routes. They perched together atop a mid-sized office block, high enough to give them a good vantage point but not so tall they couldn't clearly see the people below. The wind whipped around them, letting any loose sections of costume flow out behind them. It was a popular look for heroes, especially those aiming for a certain classical aesthetic, and Midoriya wondered if one day a photo of him in this very pose would be made into posters. At least maybe a phone wallpaper.

Somewhat incongruously, Kamui Woods had grabbed them each a hot meat bun from a vendor two blocks ago, and they enjoyed their impromptu snack as the world went about its business. "Street food, kid", he explained, "Learn it and live by it. Get to know who's gonna give you good stuff, or at least good enough to keep you going, and always keep an eye out for them."

Midoriya enjoyed his bun and asked a question he had been wondering about over the past week. "Are you the youngest hero to take on an intern?"

Kamui considered this for a moment. "No," he concluded, "Mount Lady is the youngest this year, perhaps the youngest ever. I think after her I'm the second-youngest, for whatever that's worth."

Midoriya nodded. "That's part of the reason I was so happy you offered, actually. I've been wondering what it's like to be a high level pro so young, relatively speaking."

"Aiming for the top, huh?"

Midoriya shrugged. "The way I see it, there's no point being a hero if I'm not going to try to be the best I can be. Even if I'm never ranked number One, I want to know I tried the hardest I could." This was not strictly honest. He deeply desired to be the Number One hero, but before he said this he was brought short by a sudden fear that such a desire might seem immature. Kids wanted to be like All Might.

Kamui nodded. "That's a good attitude to have. One important thing to bear in mind, though. You've clearly done your research, so can I assume you're familiar with the so-called prime age for a pro hero?"

"35, right?" Midoriya had seen several different theories online about when most heroes hit their peak, and they all tended to point to the mid-thirties. Old enough to have experience, so the conventional wisdom went, but young enough to be mobile and energetic. Also, said some commentators, generally young enough to have avoided too many serious injuries.

"Yeah, or at least about then. I don't say this to brag, but my success at such a young age is the exception, not the rule. If you're 25, 27, hell if you're 30 and you're not in the big leagues, don't sweat it. In my experience, people end up more or less where they belong. You've got potential, and if you keep it up I'm sure it'll come to fruition. I just couldn't say when."

"Thank you", said Midoriya after a quiet moment.

"No problem. I know what it's like at your age. One minute everything's a hundred years away, the next minute it's all tomorrow. I get it. Now let's stop contemplating the universe like bodhisattvas in tights and go catch a drug dealer or something."

…

The early morning through to mid-afternoon was his usual patrol time, which meant it was also Midoriya's. Given Kamui Woods' famous agility in fights and acrobatic entrances, Midoriya was slightly surprised to find that they spent most of their patrols on foot. He knew why, of course; visibility was the name of the game. It was important for a hero to be seen by the people, and even if he might have had more of a chance of seeing a crime in progress by swinging around up high, he would not be able to be a reassuring public presence. That he was less likely to snag on a weak portion of a building and cause accidental property damage was also a plus.

They passed an electronics store, and Midoriya happened to catch a commercial playing on the TVs in the window. Uwabami was endorsing hair care products, with a pair of very pretty young women in the background.

Kamui noticed that he was no longer being followed. "Eye candy later, kid."

"Oh!" Midoriya rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and blushed, "Sorry. It's just that I know that girl. The red-head, she's in my year at UA. I guess this is her internship."

"Huh. Well, that's part of the experience too, you know. You just need to know that in terms of advertising, you can do some pretty embarrassing or stupid stuff and still retain the respect of the public, but if you go too low you might never come back up." He sighed. "That's, uh, not as much of a problem for guys as it is for girls because, well, people. But it's still something to be aware of."

They kept walking, and after another block a question occurred to Midoriya. "So what's the worst advert you've ever done?"

"Furniture polish", replied Kamui Woods in a tone that suggested he did not wish to elaborate.

Towards the end of the week, Midoriya was confident that they had settled into a comfortable routine. Thus he was surprised when a blaring alarm woke him in the dead of night and Kamui Woods rushed into his room. "Get your gear on, kid", he said by way of a greeting, "A major situation's come up and we're on containment duty."

Midoriya rolled out of bed and did as he was bid. Once he reached the main office, he found Kamui preparing to leave. "What's going on?", asked Midoriya.

Kamui nodded. "Major villain activity in Hosu. We're not close enough to join the relief unless it escalates further, but incidents of this size have a nasty tendency to spill over to nearby cities and towns. We're on patrol until things either calm down or get worse."

"Right", agreed Midoriya, trying to project a confidence he did not feel.

As they made their way down to street level, Kamui explained the situation in more detail. "A gang of villains is running amok in Hosu, and there have also been unconfirmed sightings of the Hero Killer."

He gulped. "Who are the other villains?"

"Early reports indicate they're a lot like the big guy involved in the attack on USJ."

"There's more of them?" gasped Midoriya.

"So it seems. Now, unless it spills over we shouldn't have anything like that to deal with here, but your common or garden criminal often likes to use this kind of chaos in a nearby city as an opportunity to get up to no good. They figure the heroes and police are distracted, so they have a better chance of getting away with it. With that in mind, what is our job right now?"

"Being visible", said Midoriya as they reached the ground floor. On the other side of the glass wall stood the city.

"You learn quick."

They stepped out into the night, and the first thing that struck Midoriya was how quiet it was. He hadn't expected riots and barricades in the streets, but he'd thought there might at least be a distant police siren. Naturally, as soon as he heard one he jumped almost out of his boots.

"Easy there", commented Kamui Woods wryly, "Remember, we're here for safety and stability. I know it's easier said than done, but try to remain calm. If this goes well, we won't need to do anything at all."

They took an extended version of one of their usual patrol routes; one that Kamui explained he preferred in times of unrest. As far as Midoriya could tell they weren't covering very much ground that wouldn't normally have been covered by one or another of the usual routes, but as he could see other heroes on their own rounds (and more often than he would during a normal day) he supposed overlapping wouldn't be a good use of their time. The situation was tense; or at least it was for everyone who knew what was going on in Hosu. For every worried passer-by they saw, and every nervous conversation between civilians they overheard there was another commuter focused only on getting home, another crowd of students or workers looking to enjoy themselves after a hard day's grind.

It was a bizarre atmosphere. He had no idea if the next person they met would see them as a beacon of law and order or as a pair of buzz-kills in the way of their night out. In a strange way, it was a relief when the front of a convenience store blew out and showered both of them with glass.

…

_iI've been trying to keep to an informal once-per-month update schedule, which astute readers will note is not what's happened here. Nonetheless, I hope you've enjoyed this latest offering./i_

_The reason All Might helped our tiny heroes pick their names is that, having One for All, he's a bit more lively than his canon counterpart. Speaking of which, what on earth could he possibly have been discussing on that phone call? Truly, he is a man of mystery._

_I'm aware that Mirko did not take any interns at this point in canon, but the kids don't know that yet so it doesn't strike them as remarkable that Ashido got an offer. When they all get back together, she'll know a little more about the situation, which will be fun._


End file.
